


RE:

by theyreburningthewhales



Category: Prototype (Video Games)
Genre: Alex is a hungry boi, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Dissociation, Hallucinations, Ignores Prototype 2, Post Prototype, Suicidal Thoughts, and carrying around hundreds of lives worth of memories isn't ideal, implied suicidal ideation, mostly implied - Freeform, someone please help him
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-09
Updated: 2019-11-28
Packaged: 2021-01-25 21:14:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 18
Words: 95,679
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21362773
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theyreburningthewhales/pseuds/theyreburningthewhales
Summary: Alex is content to put his past behind him and start a new life with his sister, but nothing is easy when you're a three year old viral monstrosity with the entire world out rooting for your demise.Three years after the first outbreak, Cross discovers that the Mercers have settled down in a small northern college town and are keeping mostly to themselves. He is content to live and let live.Blackwatch isn't quite so charitable.
Comments: 124
Kudos: 158





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So this is unbeta'd, but it's the start of an idea that came to me in a dream a few months ago and I just wanted to get it down somewhere. Thanks for reading! Let me know if there's anything confusing or that doesn't make sense character/plot/syntax wise or anything really. 
> 
> I'm sure Cross comes across as OOC but honestly, we got to see so little of his actual character outside of some pretty desperate times that I really like the idea that he's actually a pretty nice guy.  
I plan to make Alex suffer quite a bit, also, because I am a certified bastard and I enjoy doing it.
> 
> I also have no idea what to name the darn thing ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

Alex Mercer didn’t use keys, and he didn’t bother locking his tiny apartment, either.

He didn’t really _need _to live somewhere, but it was strangely reassuring for him to return to a familiar place on occasion. Besides, it looked odd if he didn’t have somewhere he was supposed to “sleep.” Humans had their little rituals, and they expected him to follow them too.

But as his hand touched the doorknob, the biomass on his palm and fingertips began to tingle, sending back signals to tell him that something had been through here, had touched the door recently enough that the oil from their skin still clung to its surface. Irritated, he paused in the threshold to weigh his options. He really ought to call the police, because it’s what a human would do. He could even just leave and come home later, let them take what they wanted. It’s not like he really needed most of the stuff in his apartment anyway. All of the truly important items he tended to keep on his person: his laptop, his wallet (and wasn’t that novel,) and his phone (not that he really talked to anyone much.)

If he went inside and got into it with this burglar, chances are he’d just end up having to eat them, and breaking and entering wasn’t exactly a consumption worthy offense.

On the other hand, it had been a particularly frustrating day, and he didn’t really have anywhere else he wanted to be at the moment.

In the end he just gave a long suffering sigh before turning the knob and pushing the door open, slowly. He didn’t want to deal with an intruder right now, but perhaps it would be best to leave an impression so that they didn’t mark the complex as an easy target and come back for the other apartments.

If they were really looking to start a fight, they would find themselves with a very ugly surprise on their hands. Maybe he’d break their legs, just to let off a little tension. That would be him being nice. He _was_ pretty hungry, but he didn’t need to add their screams to the chorus in his head, not without a very good reason.

At this point, he was certain he wasn’t wrong; someone was definitely here. Sweat, breath, and the leftover warmth of skin and a beating heart all lingered in the air in hazy swirls. He flicked on his thermal vision, even though he knew it wouldn’t help. The apartments were all so small, so tightly packed together, that warm bodies usually surrounded him on all sides, and through the haze of that extra sense, it could be difficult to judge distance. He switched it off.

“I am _really_ not in the mood for this,” He called out into the bare, dusty living room. There was a sofa and a television, but not much else other than what came with it when he had moved in.

His landlady was a kind faced old Jewish woman named Esther, whose heart had apparently gone out to the “nice young man” that had showed up out of the blue looking desperate and offering to pay cash for a place to stay. She only got one of those descriptors right, but it didn’t stop her from bringing him furniture for his sparse new lair, moved out of storage for the first time in twenty-five years after her sons left for college. He wasn’t accustomed to expressing gratitude, but he decided he would keep an eye on her apartment as well, a few doors down, to make sure she wasn’t bothered. It was the least he could do.

“I’m serious,” He warned, setting down his laptop bag with a carefully practiced gentleness. “There’s nothing here or in any of the other apartments for you to steal, and definitely nothing worth fighting _me_ over. If you just leave right now, I won’t hurt you.”

“Hey, Alex.”

He spun around. In the doorway to an unused bedroom was—

“_Dana_?!” He stared incredulously for a second. “What the—“ He pushed his hood back. “What are you doing here?” It had been so long since he’d seen her, and he couldn’t believe he’d forgotten what she smelled like. He should have known it was her from the second he walked through the door.

“You mailed me a card for my birthday, remember? It had a sending address on it. What, you aren’t glad to see me?” She hugged herself with one arm, slumping against the frame.

_Immensely, _Alex wanted to say. _Infinitely. _But there was a reason he’d stayed gone. He opened his mouth to remind her, to tell her to go home. “Yeah,” he said instead. “You just surprised me.”

She moved into the light he had switched on in the kitchen—which he rarely used either—attached to the living room. Her eyes were a little puffy with lack of sleep, but otherwise she looked well, her face round and flushed and alive. “Can I hug you?” She asked, casually as you please, but her posture was fragile. “Or are you no-touchy right now?”

He didn’t ever _want_ to be touched, not really, but he was so overjoyed to see her that it had overridden every other impulse he had. Humans needed touch, anyway, or so he’d read in one of those psychology books he’d snagged from the library. “Yeah, come here.”

Dana grinned in relief, taking measured steps forward to lean into him, and he wrapped arms like steel around her and rested his chin on her head. “God, it’s good to see you.” He murmured into her hair.

She had gotten into some of his clothes, not that he needed them, but he did sometimes wear them just for the normalcy of it. He also kept them on the off chance the landlady wandered in at some point, as it would look pretty weird if he didn’t have any and she liked to drop by from time to time to check on him or drop off some of her home cooking. It was amusing and very sweet of her.

Alex had a good four inches in height on Dana though, and the stolen hoodie draped loosely across her tiny shoulders. It made her look very small. It also made her smell different, more like him, the lingering human scent now a little easier to ignore. Not enough, but he appreciated it all the same.

“How long are you planning to stay?” Alex suddenly felt a little self-conscious. “I don’t really have much in the way of, you know…”

She bounced on the balls of her feet. “Well,” she drew out the syllable, “forever?”

His world ground to a halt like a record scratch. “What?”

“I want to live here,” She said slowly, as if he was an idiot. “With you. Where you are.”

He had had a few too many shocks in the past five minutes. “_Why?”_ He demanded, aghast.

“…Because I missed you? Because I was lonely? Because you’re my baby brother and you’re living this whole life that I was missing out on?” Her face was downcast.

“Dana,” he said exasperatedly. “I bought you a house. It was a _nice _house.”

“And I sold it,” She shrugged. “I’d rather buy one here. Do you want me here?”

It sounded… good. Fantastic, even. His own life, with his sister, far away from chaos and blood and Blackwatch, a fresh start. But he knew it was too good, that it couldn’t last, that he would put her in danger. Worse, it was a _lie._ Alex groaned, hanging his head. “Why couldn’t you just stay there? Why couldn’t you just stay _safe?”_

“Don’t give me that bullshit,” A touch of steel entered her voice. “Do you want me around or not?”

“I _do_,” He answered automatically, and he meant it. “I just… I can’t live with a… With someone else.” He finished, in lieu of saying _human. _

“Why not?” She sat down on a barstool at the counter and fiddled with the hem of the hoodie, watching him, trying to understand. “We lived together before, for a few months. You seemed alright with it. How is this different?”

Before, he’d been incredibly well-fed. He had still been mopping up some of the hives in Manhattan, if only because he had to get out, since he couldn’t ever really sit still. He didn’t tell her that he had often had a hard time just being in the same building, breathing the same air she was. He hated that it smelled like _food._

“Dana, you can’t. You will never be able to have a normal life.” He evaded. “Not if you stay here.”

From her frown, she hadn’t missed that he’d neglected to answer her question, but she didn’t push it. “I wouldn’t have, anyway.”

“Don’t.” Alex ran a hand over his face. “Don’t say that.”

“It’s true,” she went on, ignoring his protest. “Who else could understand what I— what _we _have been through? After everything I’ve seen, after that hunter…“ She lifted a hand to her throat, swallowing visibly. “But I’d rather be with the only family I have left.” She moved her hand halfway across the table, reaching for him, but giving him the option of pulling back.

Alex dropped gingerly onto the stool across from her and took it. Her hand was warm in his, and he pointedly ignored the way it excited the virus that made up his skin. “There are still things you don’t know,” He told her.

“Fine.” She answered, without hesitation.

“I don’t want to tell you them. I probably never will.”

“Fine. Don’t.”

“You’re insane,” he declared, but he _hurt _with how much he loved her.

She burst out laughing, breaking some of the tension. “Oh, _I’m_ insane? Really, am I? Because I have literally, with my own two eyeballs, watched you jump from the top of the Empire State Building. You can’t say a thing.”

He didn’t have a stomach, but it lurched anyway. “When was this?”

“Remember? You read that stupid thing about dropping a penny off the top of it, how it could hit someone hard enough to kill them? And it was a cleared area at the time, so you went and jumped off the top because you wanted to see if the impact you made would bring the whole building down. It was close, for sure. A for effort.”

“I didn’t know you were watching that.” It had been fun, though. Nothing like freefalling from a thousand feet in the air before slamming into solid concrete at terminal velocity. It hurt, of course, but what a _rush_.

Something of that excitement must have shown on his face, because she grinned, tightening her grip on his hand. The heat of her living cells was getting distracting, but he didn’t let go yet. “I used to hack traffic cameras on the main roads and take shots every time you went flying past at like a hundred miles per hour.” She confessed. “If you took out the traffic camera, I did two.”

“Oh my god, really?” He almost smiled, then cringed. “You probably saw some… unpleasant shit, too.”

“What, your whole noodle monster thing? Pssh.” She waved a hand. “The stuff Blackwatch did was usually worse. That’s old news.”

He had intended to take a moment to listen to her pulse, to see if she was lying and actually afraid of him, but her words caught him off guard. “I— You—” he sputtered, before settling on, ”_Noodle?!”_

“You won’t let me call them tentacles!”

“They’re not!”

“Alright, what do _you _call them, then?”

He stared at her for a long moment, only now realizing that he didn’t know _what _he would call them, before just laying his head on the table and laughing at the ridiculousness of it all. After a second she broke and joined him.

They giggled together for a second, letting a more comfortable silence fall before he admitted defeat and disentangled his hand carefully from hers before the virus did anything he couldn’t take back. She let it go, still looking at him like she’d actually, truly missed him. She was so good, and kind, and _fragile. _

Something was tightening in his chest, and it was drawing his whole body tight with it. He couldn’t do this to her. She deserved better.

“Dana,” he started, a touch more subdued now. 

Her face dropped, and she visibly braced herself for his words. “Please don’t say it.”

“I want you to stay here, Dana.” He said, and he meant it. God, he wanted her to stay. “But I _can’t,_” he insisted, his voice cracking slightly on the last syllable. “I can’t be around someone all the time.”

“I’m not going to hang off of you every second,” she replied tetchily. “You have boundaries. I get it. And believe it or not, I am going to have my own life to live, too. I won’t be home constantly. And if you need me to leave for a few hours, I will. It’s not the end of the world. We both already know what that looks like.”

“That’s— It’s not—“ He grasped uselessly. “That’s not the only problem.”

“It doesn’t matter,” She was sure.

“It _does_.” He insisted, because she didn’t get it.

“Alex, you’re my brother. Of course it doesn’t.”

But it did, because he wasn’t, and he couldn’t do this.

“You— You don’t _know!”_ Alex stood up quickly, the stool flying out from underneath him, cast aside by an errant tendril of biomass. He could feel his body overheating as it readied for a fight that wouldn’t come. “What happens when Blackwatch catches up with me? Or— Or what happens if you come home one day, and it’s been a few too many hours since I’ve eaten? What then? _What then?!” _He shouted, feeling wretched when she flinched but not enough to stop. He had to push her away. She had to leave, to _live_. “What happens when you come home, and you say _hey Alex_, and I don’t know who that is?!”

He knew he was acting insane.

He was unstable, mercurial, and he knew this, and she knew it too, and she couldn’t be around him because the people who got too close always got hurt. She had to leave, for her sake.

_Hive. We must not—_

He shoved aside Her input and shot back, _there is nothing I must not. Be quiet._

Dana had drawn back a few inches, her eyes wide. Her pulse had spiked, but not enough to mean that she was really afraid. “Is that normal?” She asked him quietly.

Alex leaned over the counter, bracing himself against it. Suddenly, he just felt so heavy and _tired_.

“I’m having a good day,” he told her, devoid of emotion, not meeting her eyes. He was ashamed of his outburst, but he didn’t know what else to do to make her go. “I know who I am, and what I am, and who you are. But it isn’t always a good day, Dana.”

She looked startled for a minute, then stuck out her jaw stubbornly. “Then we’ll deal with that, too. Together.”

“You’re going to get yourself killed.” He insisted.

“No, I won’t.” She shot back. “I’m an adult, Alex. I don’t need you to cosset me.”

“How are you not afraid of me?”

“Of course I’m afraid of you! I’ve— What you are is _terrifying_ to a human by default. You were—Blacklight was built that way. Yeah, it’s a lot to take in and it was a lot to get used to. Since you’ve been away, I've had time to think about it. To come to terms with the things that are scary and the things that I realize probably shouldn’t be.” She rubbed at her face for a second, brushing away a traitorous wetness that lingered at the corners of her eyes.

“Dana, I’m not…” He went taut with anxiety. “You know I’m not him, right?” When she gave him a blank look, he dropped his eyes to his hands and sighed. “I’m not actually your brother. You… you know that, don’t you?”

“I know.” She held his eyes, and there must have been horror in them, but she faced it head on, because that’s what Dana did. “You would never let anyone hurt me. _You_ would never hurt me. And maybe you’re not human, but you’re a person. Look, we have time now. We can work on whatever we need to. Whatever you can. The only thing I’ve ever asked is that you are with me, Alex. You know, our mom…” she shook her head sheepishly. _“My_ mom, for all of her faults, she always used to say that love isn’t just an emotion you feel, but also a choice. It’s decisions you make every day, when they’re not easy but you do them anyway.”

He remembered her saying that, but it wasn’t his memory. Not his mother. “I—“

“I know you can’t be something that you’re not. I miss him, but I don’t want you to be him. I want you to be _you_. I loved my big brother because he was by brother, and _you’re_ my brother because _I love you._” She wrapped an arm around herself again, and she looked a little self-conscious of her speech. “Alex, of course there’s things about you that scare me. Instinctually, that will always be the case, and I’m trying, Alex, but I have very little control over that. But I _trust_ you, because you’re my baby brother, and that is the _choice _I am making.”

Alex just looked at her, unable to decide if he wanted to throw up or cry. He settled for slumping his shoulders, because he knew that look on her face now; it was the same one that had survived Manhattan, and the same one that had looked him in the eye the first time she’d seen him kill a person. It was the same one he’d seen on his own face, reflected in car windows when he charged onward to face an enemy he knew he had beat.

“So if you want me to be here, ignoring all of the other factors and things that frighten _you, _then I’m staying. If I can woman up about this whole thing, you damn well can too.”

Alex didn’t know if he’d won or lost.

*** * ***

_“What the hell is this?” The officer halted in front of him, favoring him with an unimpressed once-over. “Really, is this some’s idea of a joke? Who the fuck thought this was amusing? Where’s his file?” The officer snapped his fingers demandingly._

_“Here, sir. Cross, Robert T. Age _seventeen_. Jesus Christ.”_

_They stared at his file for a moment, not flipping past the first page. “Ethnicity… _Russian_? Really?” He looked up. “Are you a Ruski, soldier?” _

_Oh, real nice. Very professional. “I couldn’t say, sir.” Robert Cross lied, unmoved. He did know, of course, that his father had been. He didn’t know anything else about the man._

_“Why is he lined up for this mission? He’s practically a child. The major asked for veteran for this, someone who knows what they’re doing. Not some—” he waved a hand, “—whatever this is supposed to be. And a _Ruski _to top it all off. Christ.” The officer shook his head. _

_Cross didn’t move, just stared blankly into the distance. He hadn’t exactly stepped forward for this, but his CO had dragged him here, saying he had a “good feeling” about it. He fought the urge to scoff, outwardly betraying nothing. Down the line was a handful of sixteen other men, all higher-ranking officers and battle-tested soldiers, all standing at rapt attention. Cross knew they were listening, could feel their awareness of him. They found the situation amusing. That was fine by him, he just wanted this to be over so he could get back to work. _

_He honestly had more important things to do today, and this was a waste of his time and everyone else’s. Sending him in for something that was black-op for the US government and still more high-profile than his usual tastes was the nuclear option. It was like hitting a butterfly with a school bus. _

_He had no idea what he was even doing here, either._

_“It’s a good thing the major isn’t here, I’m telling you.” _ _The officer went on. “What an embarrassment.”_

_“He’s… he’s here now, sir.” Said the other soldier, pointing. _

_The officer whirled around, realized that he was right, and snapped to attention. “Sir!” _

_“At ease,” the major waved a hand, almost eager. _

_“We weren’t expecting you today, sir.” Said the officer._

_“Yes, well. This mission is a little more important than usual, so the general asked me to pick the squad personally.” The major turned to look at them, noting their discomfort. “Is that going to be a problem?”_

_“No, sir. Right this way, sir.”_

_There was a pause. “Anderson, Jacob. Nineteen successful missions, two commendations for—”_

_Oh, god, were they going to do it this way? This was going to take forever._

_“…and this one, sir. Peterson, James. He’s got twenty-five successful operations under his belt already, and he…” _

_The officers worked their way down the line from the opposite end, saving Cross for next to last. Goodie. He wished they’d just hurry this along. The tarmac was hot, the blackness of it soaking in the midday sun and practically boiling them in their dress uniforms like lobsters. _

_Cross stopped listening, bored. He was getting a little hungry._

_“And who’s this?” The major said, finally coming to him. “This is unusual. He’s a little young for this, isn’t he?”_

_“Yes, sir.” Said the officer who’d been berating him earlier, a hint of derisiveness in his tone. “His CO put in his name for him.”_

_“Why was that?” The major asked, looking at him. Cross met his eyes and held them, disinterested, but unwilling to back down. “Quite a stare he’s got.”_

_“He’s…” The officer flipped through is file, then froze almost comically at the amount of redacted and blacked out text. The only thing that wasn’t highly classified was... _

_“F-fifty-eight successful missions. I…”_

_The major smiled wolfishly. “Interesting.”_

_The petty officer that had arrived with the major slipped his sidearm out of its holster and fired it into the sky. _

_The major flinched a little at the volume alone, even though it was obvious he had been expecting it. The rest of the men down the line all gave shouts and spasms of surprise in varying degrees, before schooling their expressions into something a little more officer-worthy and returning to attention. _

_Cross hadn’t broken his gaze, hadn’t seen the officer draw his weapon. He didn’t so much as twitch._

_“This one.” The major said, pleased. “He’ll do.”_

* * *

A shrieking alarm clock was the first thing he heard that morning, as with most other mornings, and god did Cross _hate_ that noise.

A hand shot out from beneath grey weighted blankets to slam down on the mute button, cracking the cheap plastic of the screen, distorting the simple red digits for an instant before they shorted out entirely. He didn’t know why he’d chosen that model anyway; he’d spent so long in the Quarantine zone that he hated the color red now.

He spent the first hour of his day deconstructing his stun baton for service, absentmindedly plunging a syringe into his forearm while he did so. He took a deep breath to force down the nausea that always came after and spent a good ten minutes waiting for it to abate, all the while contemplating the charging issues he’d been having with his choice weapon lately. It had been taking a few extra cycles to power up, and that extra second of wait time could be fatal in a Red Zone.

Weapons maintenance was as important a part of his daily routine as brushing his teeth. It was a mindless enough task to take his mind off of the discomfort that the suppressant brought, and to give him time to go over other problems.

Like this month’s duty roster for his new Wisemen team, for example, because he couldn’t very well leave lieutenant Anders where he was if he was going to keep—

His phone chimed a loud alert noise, disrupting his train of thought. He took another sip of his coffee while he ignored both his phone and the rolling of his stomach. Whatever they needed, it could wait another five minutes.

It didn’t help that one of his other Wisemen had taken a nasty blow during their last mission, which honestly should have been a milk run. It was just their luck that a simple search and rescue had led them to stumble into one of the largest and nastiest hives Cross had seen yet. By then they had disturbed the nest, and in retaliation the hive released her swarm. The Wisemen’s living scent had drawn walkers like maggots to meat, and though they escaped it had been a near thing, and they didn’t get out fast enough to keep Lt. Santiago from having her eye slashed by a hunter’s wild swipe.

Now he was a teammate short, and most of their formations relied on having a certain number of people to complete them before they were really effective. They could adapt, no doubt; he would never have chosen troops for his team that couldn’t handle a little change of plans, but it was still a pain in the ass all the same.

His pager beeped.

He also had to deal with a rather short-lived breach of his personal servers. There were some secure files that had been compromised, ones that no one had any business getting into, and though the perpetrator had been caught—allegedly a disgruntled Gentek employee with petty beef against Blackwatch—there was a lot of data in those files that might cause problems should they make it into the public eye, or any eye besides his own, for that matter.

It all came down to what was accessed and who else had the data. Any of the black projects would be a big problem for obvious reasons. Anything related to his previous encounters with Zeus would be a disaster of the highest degree.

His phone began to ring, and his pager beeped loudly at the same time.

“Alright, god dammit, hang on,” he grumbled, downing the last of his coffee in one gulp, ignoring how it scalded his throat and tongue on the way down. He set down his hand and popped in his earpiece, somewhat irritably. “Cross here,” he answered when the call connected, and the words from the other end pulled the world out from under his feet.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> help him

The sky was a brilliant blue, a color he had never truly gotten to appreciate back in Manhattan before it was permanently stained red with spores and dotted with fat carrion birds, or thick and grey with smog. But the air here was so _clean! _Now he finally understood why humans would come to places like this to “find themselves.”

Alex could smell _everything, _hear _everything, _from the buzzing and scratching of insects a few inches beneath dirt, the steady hum and thrum of heartbeats and bodies, to the low rumble of large vehicles passing on a highway overpass about three miles southwest. He never realized how keen his senses had gotten in order to parse through the constant overwhelming drone of New York.

It still took some getting used to. The lack of noise had made him nervous at first, on a more primal level, as he was a being that had spent its entire life blending into dense throngs of people for survival. Blacklight just wasn’t accustomed to relative peace and quiet. For every handful of days he spent in the sunshine with his sister, wandering down a little lane of small shops and cafes or going to local events or just doing something as mundane as painting the kitchen, he spent at least one holed up in their new home, shutters drawn, pacing and twitching because the virus that composed his body was used to _action, _wasn’t built to hold on to hundreds of lifetimes worth of memories without needing to use them on a constant basis.

And there were worse days than those.

Sometimes Dana would stay inside with him, curled up on the sofa watching television or reading a book, glancing up occasionally to watch him, chewing her lip with concern. It always made him feel guilty, but the few times he’d tried to leave the house that way had gone… not well.

Fortunately, today was not one of those days. If he had a little skip in his step, well, sue him. Dana was here with him, and she accepted him for exactly who and what he was. For once he was just living his life, even if he still wasn’t quite sure what that meant yet.

And they’d gotten a _house! _ Maybe it was that weird creature part of him that was so pleased by this, but he didn’t complain about the feeling of comfort and safety that now hit him when returning to a _lair/den/hive, _even though Dana was the undisputed hive leader here. Maybe especially because of this.

He took a moment to make himself approach that thought from a different angle, because he really needed to stop thinking about his life from the perspective of a virus. It made him feel like Greene, which he wasn’t.

_Sister. _Dana was his _big_ _sister. _

Alex hadn’t known the first thing about house hunting, though he probably would have if he’d taken the time to dive into his neural network. He tried to avoid that whenever he could though, since it seemed to happen on its own often enough anyway.

Besides, Dana seemed to have a lot of fun picking and choosing, so he just left it to her.

They’d contacted a realtor and searched for a few weeks, which was not very long at all, before Dana had come back to the apartment one day, doing a happy dance, snagging him by the arm and dragging him along to show him her find.

“This is the one,” Dana announced.

It was maybe 800 square feet, which was small for this part of the country and pretty decent for New York. It was perched on a little hill with a too-steep driveway, brown, crunchy flowers wilting in the tiny brick flowerbed attached to the front. It needed a lot of paint, a complete electrical overhaul, and about half of the roof replaced. It overlooked only a little curved street with a few other houses, most of them nothing much to look at either.

Alex withheld his reservations. Dana liked it, and if he was honest with himself, he kind of did too. “Looks like it.” He told her.

“I love a good fixer-upper,” She tossed him a set of keys carelessly, noticing the tendril that shot from behind his back to snag it out of the air and laughing at it good naturedly.

“Like me?” He asked, with a genuine smile for once.

“You don’t need fixing, dummy.” She grabbed his arm and dragged him to their moving truck to start bringing things inside, babbling excitedly about her plans for renovating. She didn’t see the awe on his face.

That had been a few months ago, but they’d finally finished tearing apart and redoing the kitchen, and today was a good day. He had spent the other half of it at the college, where he’d taken to spending a lot of time lately, and had had a nice conversation with a young professor who didn’t seem to mind his quirks or his odd questions or his frankly grim sense of humor. She had even seemed to think he was funny, and when she’d finally taken her leave to head to her afternoon classes, she patted him on the shoulder and told him she’d see him around.

He had made a _friend! _By himself! He couldn’t wait to tell Dana about that. Maybe it was a childish, but she always was pleased when Alex presented her with any little tidbit to show her that he was adjusting, and he was happy to make her happy.

For the first time in a few weeks the weather was, to his relief, warm and dry. It meant that he wasn’t the only one out and about, but crowds suited him just fine, even if those crowds were a lot more comfortable with eye contact than the average New Yorker. He dodged a woman and her teenage daughter on a hot pink tandem bicycle, and they smiled at him and waved as they passed. He gave a little wave back, schooling his expression into something that looked less murderous, because his actual attempt at a smile made Dana smack his shoulder and laugh at him, because he “looked like a fucking serial killer, oh my god.”

She was kind of right, but the point was to _not _look like one. He still had some work to do, there.

His feet took him past a local dog park, and he carefully navigated to the other side of the street, downwind from the animal’s sensitive noses. He’d learned that lesson the hard way, and it was both embarrassing and hard to explain why every single one of the dogs within a few acres had turned toward him at once, ears laid back and growling in alarm. He knew he was being watched when he got a few side eyes from the frequent park goers who recognized him, but he didn’t look up to acknowledge them. He, after all, had a mission.

“Pizza,” Dana had demanded when she had called him earlier. “And get something that tastes good this time, don’t just point to something on the menu and hope they give you something edible.”

“It’s not my fault you didn’t like it,” He had said. “You didn’t tell me what to get.”

“You’re right, it’s their fault for having a _pineapple and pepperoni _topping combination, like sinners. They shouldn’t have even allowed you to do that.”

“Ethically?”

“Ethically. If someone came into my pizza parlor and ordered something so far from god’s light, I would have called the police.”

He went on his way, this time getting an actual order from her, so he wouldn’t get the wrong thing. It all tasted the same to him, anyway, when he actually bothered to eat it, but he usually didn’t. Sometimes there were complications when it came to human food, and he was still figuring that part out.

Sugar, though, seemed to be relatively safe, and he had discovered he liked sugar _a lot._

Once he was a block past the park, he glanced out into the street. It wasn’t strictly necessary, since any vehicle that hit him tended to crumple like a can of soda without even displacing him an inch, but it was probably best to avoid that, since that kind of thing tended to make humans upset.

He had just lifted his foot to take a step off of the curb when the wind changed directions and he stopped, slowly lowering it back to the warm concrete. His biomass stirred uneasily.

A man was leaning up against a phone booth on the other side of the street, a cigarette hanging loosely from his mouth while he stared down at a magazine with a picture of a car on the cover of it. He gave off an air of disinterest, flipping a page over and taking a slow, leisurely drag. For all intents and purposes, he appeared to be a nobody, a random older man enjoying the unseasonably warm day like everyone else. 

The man glanced back up again a few seconds later, then he swore and stomped out his cigarette when his eyes landed on the street across from him and found it suddenly empty.

*** * ***

Dana was sitting on the sofa with her laptop, one earbud in her ear, and Alex could tell she was coding just from the music he could hear from where he stood. He’d had to beg her to buy headphones, if only because he couldn’t listen to her Pink Floyd discography even _one more god damn time. _He could still hear the music pretty well from her headphones, even from outside the house, but it was less overwhelming this way.

“Where’s the food?” She pouted when he slipped into the living room, the chastisement on her lips dying away at the look on his face. “What is it?” She closed her laptop and jumped to her feet. She made an aborted motion to step forward, as she usually did when unsure what had brought on one of his moods, but she never got close unless he told her she could. “What happened? Is everything alright?”

“Blackwatch,” was the only word Alex said, and it was the only one she needed.

She brought her hands to her mouth. “_No_! Are you sure?”

“I was being watched. He was a good actor, but nothing can hide that smell.” He stared at his shoes, and his shoulders were tight with stress.

Dana didn’t ask him to elaborate on that. Not only did she really not want to know, but she trusted his nose at this point. “What did— Alex, did you—“

He didn’t need to ask what she meant. He couldn’t even be offended, really. It wasn’t like the thought hadn’t occurred to him. “Of course I didn’t, Dana. He didn’t give me a reason to.”

“So what did he do?” She made a helpless motion with her hands before dropping them back to her side. “I don’t want to run away. We just got settled.”

“Neither do I,” Alex sighed, pushing his hood back from his head. “It isn’t fair to you. But I don’t think we have a choice.”

“Alex, forget about me for a second,” A lock of unruly dark hair slid over her eyes. She pushed it back behind her ear agitatedly. “After everything they’ve done to you, it isn’t fair to you either!”

He accepted this, because there was no arguing with her when she wanted to defend him. “If they know I’m here, they’ll come for us.”

“So why haven’t they yet?” She asked, and he stopped, because she had a point. “You’re acting like our only options are to run or fight. What if there’s a third one?”

“Like what?”

“We stay, and see what they want.”

“What could they possibly want that isn’t me—” _On a slab_, the familiar words were right there on his tongue, but they weren’t his words, so he didn’t utter them.

Dana understood anyway. “They haven’t done anything but watch you. Maybe they’re just keeping an eye on your activities? Precautionary?” He shot her a dark look, and she threw up her hands. “I’m not saying it’s necessary, you dumbass, but they might think it is.”

Alex considered it, then shook his head. “It’s not how they operate.”

“I guess you would know,” she allowed. “But Alex, please. If they wanted to do something, they wouldn’t have bothered with spies. They would have sent bombs.”

“No, they wouldn’t. By now they know it didn’t work last time. Blackwatch is a lot of things, but they’re not stupid enough to try the same trick twice.”

“That’s exactly my point, Alex. They know they can’t beat you if it came to that. Let’s just let them come to us. Maybe they’ve had a regime change. You don’t _know_. We’ve been here for three months, but you’ve been here longer, so who knows how long they’d been watching before you noticed.”

“Dana—”

“If they know you know, and you didn’t turn their spy into tomato paste, it’ll at least make them pause. Besides, if they found us here, they’ll find us anywhere.”

Frustrated, he barked, “that’s why I didn’t want you to be here so close to me! We can’t bank on their indifference!” He couldn’t lose Dana again, not like this.

“I don’t need you to baby me!” She snapped as if he needed a reminder. “I knew the risks!”

“Then you know that they’re unacceptable!”

“You know what? _Fine_.” She said curtly, surprising him by throwing herself down on the sofa and making it clear that the conversation was over. The frame of it was broken underneath in a few places, where Alex had been a little careless sitting down, but she’d rarely complained. “You’ve already made up your mind, so go ahead and drag me out of here, then.”

Three weeks later, Alex was beginning to regret not doing just that.

He spotted another Blackwatch officer staring at him from inside of one of his sister’s favorite coffee shops while he passed it. He almost didn’t catch it; the glare from the sun blinded him to the details of the interior unless he wanted to go in, which he didn’t. He wouldn’t have noticed them at all if someone hadn’t opened the door as he passed, the smell making him freeze and stare through the window, trying to pick out the thermals of his stalker. They were watching him, and not making any effort to hide it anymore.

After that, he saw at least one of them every week. He made sure to note their positions, to catalogue their faces and ranks, but otherwise would give them plenty of space and just let them be. As satisfying as it might feel to smear one on the pavement, it wasn’t worth the inevitable retaliation.

*** * ***

Three months after he spotted the first spy, Alex found himself again at the local college, headed back from a particularly frustrating hour of arguing difficult little know-it-all professor about basic microbiology. He had been on his way to meet up with Clara for lunch when he caught that smell _again. _

It was so much worse this time, stronger. He recognized it immediately as a D-Code, one of Blackwatch’s Redlight enhanced super-soldiers, the sort that had given him no end of grief back during the Outbreak. Not even a tenth as deadly as Captain Cross, but bad enough.

The hair on the back of his neck stood on end, and he felt a growl rising in his chest, but he forced it down, didn’t react outwardly. The spies he had gotten used to, but this was different, a change in the pattern that he hadn’t prepared for or expected. If they were sending a D-Code, there was probably more.

Blackwatch was making their move.

He should have taken his sister away from here when he noticed the first one. They should have left ages ago!

His complacency had cost him dearly. He was somewhere he couldn’t fight, not without hurting innocent college students, and he was in no shape to throw down with a D-Code. He was already pretty hungry, far too light to risk losing any biomass.

Even worse, the jolt of panic he felt triggered something in him, something he’d really thought he was going to avoid today. Now his thoughts were coming through loud and clear, his mind still and glossy like the surface of a pond. He knew this was a very bad sign.

He had to get clear of the school, had to get somewhere that a breakdown or an all-out dogfight wouldn’t put hundreds of innocent lives in danger. He shouldered his way through the midday crowd, unable to muster presence of mind to respond to the cheerful greetings and waves of some of his students. He snuck a peek at the convex mirror that hung at the intersection of four hallways. He saw his own pale visage reflected starkly against the brown leather of his jacket, a handful of faculty, and— there.

Behind him was a large man, towering about a foot above the throng of people, his eyes fixed clearly on Alex as he followed behind about ten yards. He was pushing toward him with a determined stride, too fast to be casual. Was he gaining ground, or just following?

He had to get _out of here_—

“Excuse me,” A white haired man with a stern, wrinkled face stepped in front of him. Alex thought he might have seen him around campus once or twice, but human pleasantries had never been his strong suit anyway, and he wasn’t going to stop and make introductions. The man was wearing a tweed jacket and his tone was condescending and rude, so it took Alex a moment to convince his squirming biomass that this man wasn’t worth the panic that would ensue if he ate him in public.

“Move,” Alex growled. He really wasn’t in the mood, and he didn’t have time for this. His form crawled with nervous energy and the insistent but familiar ache of hunger, and the voices that usually screamed somewhere in the back of his head were hushed in a ringing silence. Alex knew what came after the silence, and if it happened here, it could get ugly.

All of his fears were coming together in a bottleneck of terrible: he was trapped, hungry, running from Blackwatch, and surrounded by unacceptable collateral.

Somewhere underneath the panic, he was dimly aware that this whole situation was pretty embarrassing. Here he was, the mighty Zeus, who’d single-handedly taken on armies and Elizabeth Greene, and who had swallowed a nuclear bomb and crawled back to New York through miles of dark ocean, and now he was breathless with fear over one stupid D-Code. Though Alex knew well enough that a single person in the right place at the right time could be far more devastating than an entire platoon, the point stood. He’d never felt so _helpless._

“What a boorish young man,” he reprimanded. “Are you the one who’s been tutoring Ms. Downs?”

Alex frowned, then remembered. “Who, Katie?” He was caught off-guard enough to answer, still looking for a way past. The halls were too full of people, and he was afraid of pushing through it. In this state, he couldn’t be sure that he wouldn’t push too hard.

“Yes,” The man turned up his greasy nose. “I’m her history professor. She came to me last week with some _very _interesting ideas about the Vietnam War.” There was sarcasm in there, somewhere, and a thinly veiled disdain.

“Okay?” Alex prompted, annoyed. There was a pressure building behind his eyes, and he knew what it meant, but he pushed it down to focus on the conversation he was having. There was something _else _he had to remember, but he couldn’t, it wasn’t coming to him. There was a smell lingering in the air that he thought he knew. It meant danger, it was something he had to get away from, but what was it?

He’d forgotten.

“Look, I really don’t—”

“I would like you to take a look at this,” The old man sneered, holding out what looked like a printed essay, “and tell me what’s wrong with it.”

Alex glanced over it, not taking more than a few seconds to read the three paragraphs he could see. “…Nothing?” He shrugged. “Couple of spelling errors, maybe. Is there a point to this?”

“Nothing? _Nothing? _A good half of this information is blatantly wrong, and the rest is just speculation!” He shoved the paper against Alex’s chest, and it _burned _where his bare fingers brushed up against his false skin. He forced the eager virus particles into stillness and stared at the man.

“No, it... It isn’t?” He didn’t get what was happening here. What had he been running from? He wanted to go home.

“Yes, it _is. _I have a Ph.D. on this, _sir. _I think I’m well-versed on the actual events as they occurred.”

Alex should have laughed, but he didn’t know what would come out if he opened his mouth, so he didn’t. Fuck this guy’s degree, he’d eaten the entire lives of over half a dozen military officers who’d _been there. _And he had more college degrees tumbling around in his scattered neurons than this guy would have days in his life. “I don’t think you know dick, professor.” He informed him as evenly as he could manage, moving to sidestep him at the first opening he got.

The old bastard stepped in his path again. It was the wrong move.

Instincts that were already aggravated all sang to life at once, impressing on him that he was being blocked, that he should fight or escape. There were quick paths around, and more grisly paths _through, _but he grit his teeth and leveled the man with a glare. The buzzing in his skull had picked up and was getting louder, harder to ignore, and this guy was being aggressive enough that it might spill over before he could stop it.

“Well, perhaps you should just leave it to the professionals and stop sabotaging my student’s education.” The old man said derisively.

“I don’t have time for this,” Alex spat. He could feel a well-traveled abyss crawling up his spine, and suddenly he felt trapped in the inadequate space of the hallway. There was another narrow walkway superimposed over the sight, metal rails and dark corners and light streaming in through a hole in the wall where he’d forced his way in. Everything else was red and _wet_—

_Okay. Time to leave. _

“Fuck _off_,” he hissed, trying to get around, trying to keep track of his surroundings, the real ones, but the professor was completely oblivious, launching into a tirade about… something. He went on for a few seconds before he finally seemed to realize Alex wasn’t listening.

“Excuse me, I am speaking to you!” The man said haughtily.

He was quickly becoming unimportant. The black shore of sensations and memories had retreated back to a place in Alex’s mind that he couldn’t reach, and out of nowhere it all surged forward, a tsunami of color and sight and sound that he was helpless against. The old man’s voice began to blur and others faded in and out, coming through as though he were underwater.

_This is all we have. This, and then a hole in the ground._

_When you have a festering wound, you cauterize it._

_Always this restless little bundle of energy, like you’re afraid that at any minute you’re gonna burn out._

“—can’t believe you have the nerve to—”

_Want to know what makes it tick._

_Time’s running out, Mercer. _

“—you even listening to me, sir!? I can’t have you…”

_Slow. Fatally slow._

“What’s going on here? _Alex_?!”

_I am your mother._

_You’re acting like our only options are to run or fight!_

“—can back off, man! Look at him! Back _up!_ Give the man some room to breathe!”

_Whatever he is now, he is not the man you knew. _

“Alex? Can you hear me? Hey, come on, it’s okay, no one’s going to—”

_He is something else._

“—starting to freak me out, buddy, come on, it’s alright—”

_In a way… I almost feel sorry for you._

“Breathe for me, Alex, just _breathe!”_

Alex knew the words that were being spoken to him, but they came together as a nonsense series of syllables that he couldn’t parse the meaning of before new words took their place. He could hear something behind him, the pain in his head cresting sharply, and suddenly he _knew _that the Specialist was there, with the syringe full of cancerous poison, ready to plunge it into his turned shoulder like a dagger and sap away his strength. Terror seized his throat and held fast.

And then there was a hand on his shoulder.

He didn’t think, _couldn’t_ think past the fear that gripped him, because he wouldn’t let this happen, wouldn’t let that parasite take him again, couldn’t feel weak, drained, damaged, _useless_. His arm snapped out and he gave a savage snarl, gripping the offending limb and squeezing mercilessly, his skin writhing with hungry cells, consuming processes waking up, all engines go, _on fire— _

“I’m sorry! Oh god, sorry! Please let me go_, let go, let go, let go!_ Aw fuck! Shit, shit, _shit!”_

The familiar voice was like a bucket of ice water dumped on his head, and it cleaved through the hallucination like a knife. He released his brutal grip before they had finished stumbling through pleas, tripping back against a wall and holding himself there, his spine flat to the cold stone.

_“What…?”_ He gasped, realizing that he was hyperventilating. His lungs burned and he was shaking, his sight tinted red, but all of this meant nothing because one of his students was there, a few feet in front of him.

Jonesy was cradling his arm, which was already swelling with deep purple bruising, doubtlessly broken, _crushed_, and his eyes were welled with tears. “I—I’m sorry,” he was crying in earnest now, his knees buckling from underneath him. Behind him was another student he didn’t know and Alex’s new friend Clara, who caught him, looking stunned and white as a sheet. “I didn’t mean to, sir, I’m sorry, oh _god.” _Jonesy yelped as the other student, another young man, gently took his arm to look at it.

After a few more seconds, Jonesy fainted.

“What happened? Clear the way, move!” Came another voice, an authority of some kind. It was then that Alex realized they’d had an audience for a while, a loose circle of students and faculty who were all taking slow steps backward, horrified. Even then, his hunger having woken, his body pushed him to pursue, complained that food was moving _away_. He planted his feet where they were and didn’t move an inch, afraid of what he would do if he let himself.

“I—” He choked. “I didn’t— I wouldn’t—”

The professor who’d been berating him was staring, slack-jawed, his mouth working like a fish. The D-Code was gone, but his smell hung heavy in the air. He could have gone anywhere, but at least he didn’t seem interested in making a public scene, since Alex had gone and done that for him.

_You were always so smart. You were ready to give up all our secrets_.

He groaned as more voices tore through his head, burrowing him underneath.

_The more we know about it, and the less it can discover, the better off we are._

“Alex, honey, deep breaths, okay? It’s alright, calm down,” Clara put up her hands as though he were a wild animal, her voice soft and sweet like she was soothing a scared child. “No one’s gonna hurt you. It’s alright.” She said again. “Can you take a deep breath for me?”

It wasn’t. He couldn’t.

There were more voices, shouting, but he couldn’t hear anything past the blur, the pulsing of his biomass and his nerves as he shoved through the crowd, which parted before him like the Red Sea. Someone called a name, and he thought maybe it was his name, but he didn’t know, he didn’t know his name, only that he had to go, _right now, _before he hurt anyone else.

*** * ***

“Enter.”

Cross pushed the door open, taking care to leave it on its hinges as he passed through. He knew what this was about, but it didn’t stop the lurch of anxiety in his gut, or the dread that had hung over him like a dark cloud all the way to the meeting.

He hadn’t been summoned to the war room, which was his first warning that something wasn’t right. Instead, he made his way to the General’s personal office. It had changed a lot since Randall’s death, whereas before it was lifeless and barren, now the wall was lined with bookshelves. It was more lively, somehow, while simultaneously giving it the dusty and stagnant feel of somebody’s grandparent’s house. Cross had to wonder how long it had taken them to move everything in, and where he’d been keeping it before.

There was still that massive mahogany desk, because a big important man obviously needed a big important looking desk, and on the other side of that desk was General McIntyre. Cross didn’t care for him much (and the feeling was mutual) and he had a bad habit of pontificating, but he had the right idea on some things. He was respectable enough, when he had all the information. The problem was that he rarely had the right information.

Captain Vasquez was there too, for some reason, imperious as always but weirdly disinterested. Cross caught his green eyes wandering, tracing patterns on the ceiling and re-reading the titles of the leather-bound books that now lined the walls.

He was a large man, taller still than Cross and with maybe a hundred pounds on him, but for what he was, this was about par. He was the product of a later round of experimental augmentations, a much more successful and stable group than first ones had been. Cross was still far, _far_ stronger than he was, but it took a lot more presence of mind to keep that strength in check, and the newer enhancements came with much less maintenance, much to Cross’s annoyance and Vasquez’s smug satisfaction. No weekly suppressant shots, no jittery apprehension when he sat still for more than two minutes.

Vasquez was unnaturally enhanced, smart, vicious, and willing to do whatever it took to accomplish his goals. He would be a perfect soldier if he wasn’t such an obvious sociopath.

And Vasquez absolutely did not like him.

“You wanted to see me, sir?” Cross asked, trying to ignore the other captain’s presence.

“We found Zeus.” The General said in a bored tone and without preamble, still eyeing over a report on his desk.

Cross blinked, then blinked again. That was not what he expected. “Sir?”

“Or, perhaps more accurately, _you _found Zeus, didn’t you?” The little smirk on the officer’s face when he looked up turned his veins to ice.

“Sir,“ Cross began.

“That’s alright, Captain. Do spare me the excuses. I am aware that the two of you did some work together, back during the first few weeks of its life.”

There was no use denying it, but also no good to be done by confirming. He settled on a noncommittal “Sir.”

His and Zeus’s earlier collaboration was more of a careful manipulation than an actual partnership. Things changed when Zeus had killed Greene and cut the head off of the infection, and when Cross had revealed himself as the inside informant that had been feeding him a carefully curated and well-timed stream of information.

Shortly after, in light of the impending nuclear strike, Zeus had agreed to meet with him on the _USS Reagan_ in attempt to disable the bomb before Blackwatch could drop it on Manhattan. The virus had slunk off wearing Taggart around like a cheap suit to do… whatever it was that he did before a big fight.

Of the events that transpired afterward, he only recalled heading toward the Reagan to get a more accurate assessment of the situation. That fuzzy, liminal memory ended abruptly before restarting hours later like a frayed cassette tape, when he woke up injured and covered in his own blood while a panicked Wiseman he blearily recognized as Jameson shook him, pleading with him to stay awake.

He had a severe concussion, six hard breaks in his left arm, and three fractured ribs, but he was alive. Somehow, Cross had found his way back to the tattered remains of his squad without getting eaten. They had all believed him dead, and the reports that he had been replaced by the supreme hunter only reinforced this belief. They had stared at him with undeserved awe that day.

He learned later that the nuke that had detonated over the ocean, past the minimum safe distance. By the time he was back on his feet, Zeus had already dragged himself onto dry land, diminished and on death’s door, but he’d survived a nuclear blast at almost point blank.

Cross wasn’t sure it was possible for anything to kill him.

McIntyre was staring at him neutrally, as though they weren’t discussing anything of importance, but Cross realized he’d spent precious seconds wool gathering when the general continued.

“You’ve done a lot of good for this organization, Cross, so I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt. I know you’re a good soldier, even if you come off as a manipulative little worm. You’re a man who gets the job done, and you think outside the box. I can respect that, at least.”

If the General discovered the extent of Cross’s treasonous activities with Zeus, he would be eating his words and washing it down with a cup of lemon juice and razor blades. Cross didn’t speak, his mind steadily working and churning out possible outcomes. The ones he came up with, he liked very few of.

“But I know a man like you is smart enough to keep some things out of his files, however secure you incorrectly assumed that they’d be. So, Captain, what do you know about Zeus?”

His hopes sank further.

“I’ve had some people keeping an eye on him for about six months, watching his comings and goings.” Was his calm reply, as though this wasn’t the nightmare scenario Cross had been hoping to avoid ever since the nuke. “There’s no way to really track his movements precisely, but our evidence would suggest he’s been there for at about two years, now.”

“Yes, it has settled down in a little town called Willowbrook, right on the US-Canada border.” The General prompted him, and Cross nodded. “Cold, wet climate, low population density— It’s not exactly the most comfortable place for it to live. What would it gain by staying there?”

Cross gave this this some thought. “It’s not somewhere we’d have expected him to go,” he tried, not believing for one second that he was off the hook for his deception, but willing to go with it for now. “It’s still pretty close to New York, geologically speaking, compared to another country, which is where I had _assumed _he’d go.”

“What’s your assessment?”

“I think he just wants to stay under the radar for now. The troops I’ve sent to spy on his activities have gone largely unmolested. Not my new Wisemen, they’re uninvolved.” He neglected to mention that he had been withholding his Wisemen because they weren’t cannon fodder, not like the bull-headed morons he’d thrown at Mercer like dog treats. That they had managed to stay alive this long was a miracle. “Zeus is aware that we are watching him, but he hasn’t made a move to stop it, yet. I think he’s accepted surveillance as the price of our cease-fire.”

“Sure,” The General said mildly, raising a single finger. “It’s a solid assumption, based on the information you have. We sent some of our men, too. A handful of Captain Vasquez’s Ravager squad and one D-Code from the Centurions.”

That got his attention. “You sent _a D-Code?” _Cross’s voice pitched a little high, but _jesus christ_.

There was no way that went well. Normal troops and spies were one thing, but sending an enhanced soldier and breaking that consistency would get Mercer’s hackles up faster than anything. The virus would consider it an escalation, an immediate threat.

“He noticed that one right away, a misstep we won’t repeat. It was quite a while ago, but his rather… territorial reaction caused an incident at a local community college.”

“_Shit_,” was all Cross could say, because what _incident? _Why hadn’t his spies reported this?

How long had they been aware of his deceit? Why hadn’t they called him on it until—

Ah, right. His private files. Not an angry Gentek employee with a grudge after all, then. Or if it had been, he’d squealed about everything he’d dug out of Cross’s servers before Blackwatch undoubtedly gave him a brand new pair of concrete shoes and a bath in the ocean. Whatever information McIntyre had gotten a hold of, and whatever he’d found out, he was interested enough that he was willing to show his hand.

Well, that was his mistake. He would have gotten much more out of it if he hadn’t let Cross in on the fact that he was watching him. Maybe the situation was salvageable.

“It seems that Zeus has grown tired of our scrutiny.” The officer continued. “More recently, the last time it spotted lieutenant Carver, and it confronted him in broad daylight in a public area.”

“I…see. So how big of a mess did his insides make on the concrete?”

“Well, here’s where it gets interesting.” The General removed a file from the stack on his desk and propped it open. “Carver reports that Zeus picked him out of a crowd, followed him some distance, and stopped him in a park to _talk.” _

Now he was puzzled. “Zeus confronted him but didn’t eat him?”

“Not even a little bit.” He met Cross’s eyes. “Want to know what it said to him?”

*** * ***

_Fuck, fuck, fuck! Where is it? Where did it go?! _

There was no way Zeus spotted him, was there? He keyed his radio, woven into the fabric of his clothes and almost invisible. “Carver to Red Crown,” he whispered, his eyes darting from person to person with alarm, but all he saw was calm, bored civilians and dirty, slushy snow. “I’ve lost the target.”

“Red Crown copy. We’ve engaged thermal imaging. Stand by.”

“So who are you here with?”

Lieutenant James Carver startled, scaring away the small army of pigeons that had come to rest around the bench he sat upon. The question came from the child that had been relaxing beside him for the past few minutes, ignoring him and retying his shoelaces. Now he was staring at him with large, dark eyes that were too sharp for his round, innocent face. He smirked at Carver’s reaction, ripping off a piece of the pastry in his hand and stuffing it into his mouth. “Jumpy, aren’t you?”

“Jeez, kid. I’m a little busy right now.” He scolded when he got his breath back.

“Too busy to answer my question?” He asked calmly, licking a bit of sticky sugar from his thumb. “What, can’t multitask?”

“Kid, I’m—”

“You’re a Wiseman, right?” He demanded suddenly, his tone changing to something that was _just_ off enough to raise a whole legion of red flags.

“Uh,” The lieutenant sputtered. “Sorry?”

The child, who could not have been more than eight, raised an eyebrow at him as though he were impaired before shaking his head and turning his attention back to his snack. “God, you’re slow. Cross will let anyone on the team these days, huh?”

The penny dropped.

He fingered his radio with trembling hands, and the kid’s head snapped up. “Go ahead and call it in,” He shrugged as though bored. “You already knew where I was.”

“Carver to Red Crown, I— I’ve reacquired the target.” he stammered. “Situation normal. Stand down.”

“Thanks.” The child who was most definitely _not _a child gave him a guileless smile, angelic on his freckled little face. Carver sent a prayer to whatever gods might be listening that he wasn’t about to die. “I’d rather not deal with them right now, otherwise I would be spending my whole day on this and I’ve honestly got appointments to keep.”

“What do you want?” Carver asked before he could stop himself.

The smile dropped from his face like a sack of bricks. “Are you one of the Wisemen or not?”

_Captain Cross’s team? _ “Yes. Of course I am.” His voice was firm, and he would be thankful for that for the rest of his life.

“Then tell Cross that if he has something to say to me, instead of sending his boy toys to watch my every move, next time he can get his bitch ass down here and say it to my face like a fucking adult. Tell him to stop sending _minders _before I start _eating them._” The words were smooth, but not rehearsed. Coming from the mouth of this cute little boy, it was incredibly eerie. It got worse when the lieutenant realized that if Zeus was wearing him around like a Halloween costume, he must have eaten him at some point.

A _child._

His throat closed for a second.

“Oh, don’t give me that look.” Zeus rolled his eyes. “I’ve got too many Blackwatch soldiers bouncing around in here with memories of gunning down innocent Manhattan citizens for target practice. You are in no place to give me that high-horse crap.” He tossed the rest of the pastry at the pigeons, watching them coo and fight over it with interest before he went on, a little bitterly. “I wasn’t even awake when I took this one. You can blame one of your stupid airstrikes for knocking me into him. He was already dead.”

Zeus got to his feet and drew himself to his full, tiny height, those big dark eyes boring into him, flickering a blood red for just long enough to make his heart stop. “Now scamper off back to your master like a good whipped hound and stay out of my fucking business.”

The boy turned on his heel and wandered into the crowd. He vanished the second Carver blinked.


	3. Chapter 3

_At least you know he won’t attack you in public… probably. _

Captain Cross’s quarry halted in the doorway as soon as he’d passed the threshold, quirking his head in that particular way that always reminded Cross of a hound perking up at the smell of a rabbit. The monster scanned the tables with baleful eyes, his gaze landing on each person in turn and dismissing them in an instant until he locked onto Cross with the unyielding and perfect focus of a computer-guided missile system.

Blue eyes flashed yellow, and then red.

The beast’s shoulders squared off and his jaw clenched, so Cross took initiative and, painfully slowly, raised his hands in surrender. When he received narrowed eyes in response, he made a careful gesture to the seat across the table from him. Then he looked down, pointedly breaking his line of sight as a display of trust that he knew Zeus would understand. For now he managed to keep his heart rate steady, knowing Zeus would be able to hear it from a mile away.

_Don’t attack. _He said with his body. _I’m not here to fight. Look how calm I am._

Cross had been waiting at this diner for the past four hours, knowing it was one of Dana’s favorite haunts. It was a bit of a dive, to be honest. Most of the tables and chairs were worn with age and rough handling, and the decor wasn’t really consistent, but the atmosphere was pleasant and the food was good, so it hadn’t really been a hardship to hang around. It beat a stakeout in a Red Zone any day.

When Zeus had finally come wandering up with his “sister,” Cross once again wondered how something so alien could appear so… well, banal. He was holding onto one arm of her oversized grey parka to keep her steady on the ice, and she’d been laughing at something he said, with no regard for the fact that Zeus could remove the limb with barely a twitch.

Cross didn’t know if her intrepid lack of concern was a Mercer family thing, or if she’d just gotten used to it, made it her new normal. It was one thing to accept that Zeus wasn’t human, but quite another to accept that the thing wearing your dead brother around like a cheap suit was actually a synthetic bioweapon, a viral sludge in the shape of a man.

_And wasn’t that some lovely imagery,_ Cross mused.

Cross himself had seen Zeus in action, and maybe that was the difference. He’d seen those hands peel the armor plating from a tank to remove the soft humans inside as casually as a man might open a can of sardines. He’d seen the legs on which it walked meekly beside her defy gravity and sprint up the sheer faces of skyscrapers, faster than any kind of object had any right to be, human or otherwise. And those fingers were hiding monstrous claws like swords, and Zeus used them to hold her gently, to make sure she didn’t slip and damage her frail, human body.

Zeus didn’t _look_ dangerous at all, when he didn’t want to, and his default form didn’t actually stand out much. In retrospect, that was the most frightening thing about him. His disguise was his biggest strength. Well, okay, maybe not his _biggest_ strength, since Cross had once seen him pull the mounted cannon off of a tank and use it to bat a helicopter out of the sky like a baseball.

Maybe it helped that looked uncannily like the late Alexander Mercer, and yet just unlike him enough to be anonymous. Anyone who had it pointed out to them would undoubtedly see it immediately, but he also didn’t think anyone would make the connection themselves, if he based it on looks only. Somehow, Zeus had found that Goldilocks zone between Superman and Clark Kent.

Of course, if Zeus couldn’t manage to stay on the correct side of the uncanny valley, he wouldn’t have been such a security nightmare back in his day. But still, it was still hard to believe that there wasn’t some kind of… he didn’t know, _miasma_ around him that would give away his true nature.

_Just those eyes._

When he chanced a peek back up at the pair, Dana had noticed her brother’s change of posture, and had laid a hand on his shoulder while asking him something too quiet for Cross to hear. Her eyes were concerned, but when Zeus replied, she shook her head and waved a hand, wandering over to the counter. Those blue eyes snapped back to Cross’s, and he had to fight the urge to jump a little.

He was definitely paler than Dr. Mercer had been in life, his face drawn a touch too sharp and too gaunt. His hair was wind-tossed, darker than Cross had expected it to be and a little longer than it had been before, but not by much. He still wore a leather jacket, but a different one. It was odd to see him without a hood drawn up over his eyes, but he could see one tucked under his collar.

Cross was by no means helpless against this thing, but there was always this instinctual awareness of being _prey _when Zeus looked at you. He could pin even the most hardened and fearless soldiers in place with that stare, and sometimes they would freeze before they’d even made the conscious decision to do so, a mouse spotting the shadow of an eagle.

Not that it worked on _him._ The creature’s attention made him wary, but nothing more. It was one of the reasons Cross had been picked to face Zeus in the first place, wasn’t it? His reputation for being _fearless. _

He could have laughed.

The captain waited patiently while Dana ordered her food, and she left with a few more soft words to Zeus, clutching a paper bag of sandwiches and a Styrofoam cup in her delicate hands. He had taken his eyes off of Zeus for the moment it took to follow Dana’s departure, and this was intentional.

_Look, Zeus. Still not concerned, not afraid. Friendly meeting, see?_

Well, maybe it wasn’t _friendly, _but it wasn’t hostile.

Okay, fine. Maybe it was still pretty hostile, but that was just how the two of them operated. If he were entirely cordial, Zeus would definitely know something wasn’t right, and he’d be gone before Cross had a chance to blink. There was too much history between them for pleasantries, and Zeus wasn’t one to take chances, especially not when his sister’s wellbeing was at stake.

In the meantime, Cross picked at his half-eaten order, his usual appetite worryingly absent. His heightened metabolism should make him hungry enough to eat the food in front of him several times over, but at the moment he could barely even remember it was there. He wanted to shred napkins, to stack jelly packets, _anything. _While he could sit through meetings and tolerate travel to an extent, prolonged stillness just wasn’t in his nature anymore, and he’d been here long enough that his enhanced body screamed at him to _move, _to _do something. _It didn’t help that there was a threat here now and he wasn’t even looking at it.

Cross kept his posture open and relaxed. If he looked like he was gearing up for a confrontation, Zeus could get the wrong impression and lash out, which would be fatal for the both of them. He allowed himself to tense up when his table was cast in a shadow, because if he was too calm, Zeus would be suspicious. When Cross finally looked up, Alex Mercer was looming over him as only something like him could.

“Captain,” was all he said, because he’d never been particularly garrulous.

“Hey.” Cross didn’t bother to try for a more affable tone, because it would be fishy as hell and Zeus would see right through it, so he aimed for neutral. “It’s been a while, Zeus.” The old codename slipped out before he could stop it, but the beast didn’t react besides a slight twitch of agitation.

“What do you want?” Straight to the point, as usual. Zeus was nothing if not consistent.

The captain idly pushed the food around on his plate, gauging the virus’s reaction carefully. “I’m sure you noticed my agents keeping tabs on you.”

“Of course I did.” Zeus sniffed, wrinkling his nose in displeasure.

“Well, it’s been almost three years.” Cross said, watching the little micro-expressions on his face. He was once again struck by the absolute perfection of his disguise.

The creature was an artist, and the carefully placed flaws on he put on Alex Mercer’s face were his masterpiece: there were little hairs out of place around the eyebrows, pores across the bridge his nose, winding capillaries in the eyes and slightly chapped lips. The only discernable difference was the body language; there was definitely something off about it, but it was difficult to pinpoint. It was just _wrong_.

Cross was well aware that very few people in his organization actually got close enough to see these details before he inevitably got far, far closer than anyone would ever like.

“So what now, then? You gonna send in the hounds, now that you know I’ve caught on?” His tone was resentful as he finally sat down.

“If I could do that, I would have already done it.” Cross pointed out. “I just can’t believe you let Lieutenant Carver live, or any of my men for that matter. You’ve always been one of those _remove spine, ask questions later _kinda guys.”

“Things change,” Zeus bit out, leaning forward to stare at him unblinkingly.

“Please.” Cross waved away. “I haven’t made a single aggressive move toward you in all of this time, nor since I’ve gotten here, and you’re itching to gut me.”

“I still haven’t.” Zeus countered. “I can, though, if you’d like. It would be _very_ gratifying.”

“See? That’s what I mean. You still only exist to terrorize the human race, so maybe things don’t change that much.”

“Go fuck yourself, Cross. Humans do worse shit to each other than I could ever manage on my own.”

A woman passed their table on her way to the bathroom, and though he barely reacted, Cross could tell Zeus was watching her from the way his eyes twitched in her direction for a millisecond and his body stilled just a fraction. The difference between his sharp attention and complete inattentiveness was almost invisible, but he seemed to go back and forth between the two every few seconds or so. Zeus had always been easily distracted by movement, and there was a pretty sinister reason for that that Cross didn't particularly want to linger on when he was this close.

Now he was staring at Cross with a disgusted sneer, his lip curled up to show unnaturally white and very unnecessary teeth.

“Stop looking at me like I’m the abomination, here.” Cross snapped before he could stop himself. He wasn’t afraid of Zeus per se, but that didn’t mean the thing didn’t get under his skin for entirely different reasons.

Mostly loathing and disgust.

“That’s rich coming from you,” Zeus said, dripping with contempt. “You are so lucky we’re in public.”

“Why, or you’d do something violent? Because usually nothing can keep you from destroying and eating whatever you want.”

“Where are you even going with this?” Zeus snapped. “_Why are you here_?”

Cross scrutinized him for a long moment while he constructed his reply, watching him tap out a rhythm with his fingertips on the cheap plastic tabletop, glancing at the weapons concealed beneath his clothes every so often. Was anxious fidgeting an urge that crossed the species barrier, or was Mercer was just trying to keep from reaching across the table to absorb him right then and there?

“Twenty-two.” Cross said finally. “Twenty-two separate spies have been watching your every move, and every single one came back to me safe and sound. You’ve never held back before, except when you were forced to work with me.” And even then, Cross had had to ask half a dozen times before Zeus behaved long enough for them to accomplish anything. It almost hadn’t even been worth it. “Usually just being affiliated with Blackwatch is a sin punishable by death, at least in your books. Why the restraint, all of a sudden? Don’t tell me you’ve developed a conscience, because I won’t believe you.”

The tapping hand on the table stuttered in its rhythm for a second before continuing. “Do you _want_ me to eat them?” Mercer side-stepped his question, tilting his head just so in a birdlike a manner that set Cross ill at ease. He tried not to squirm in his seat. “Well, hell, Cross, all you had to do was say so. I’m not really in the business of being a human garbage disposal these days, but guilt-free biomass is hard to come by in a place like this.”

Cross was starting to get annoyed at the run around. He waved a hand, ignoring the way Zeus’s eyes tracked the movement sharply. “It’s not like you have to worry about us coming looking for our missing men, since we already know you’re here and their fate would have been pretty self-evident. I’m just weighing possibilities, here.” He held his hands out, palms up like the plates of a scale, tipping from one side to the other. “What do you have to gain or lose by leaving them be? Honestly, I expected this posting would lose me a fair few soldiers. I was sending men I wouldn’t really be broken hearted if they'd beefed it here, but you haven’t laid a tentacle on any of them.”

Zeus looked surprised, then a little peeved, and then he just deflected again. “Alright, then why send them in the first place? If they weren’t competent and you figured that they would just die, what did you think you would accomplish?”

“I knew you were hanging around a college town, and I kept expecting you to move on, but you never did. I just wanted to know what your angle was.”

“What were you so worried about me doing?” Zeus was entirely perplexed with the direction this conversation had taken. “You weren’t this concerned when I was hunting in Manhattan.”

He had a point. An underpopulated little nowhere was hardly a robust hunting ground, nor was it the ideal place to start a plague. There wasn’t really much he could do here. Or there was, but it would be pointless. “Well, dumb drunk college kids make easy pickings, I’m sure—“

“Wait, what did you think your soldiers would have been able to do to stop me from—" It hit him. “Did… did you send them for me to _eat_? So I wouldn’t hunt college kids?”

Cross neither confirmed nor denied. “But then you and Dana bought a house, which really blindsided me, I have to say. Try to see this from my perspective, Zeus: not one unsolved missing person’s report, not one missing student, not one eaten Blackwatch soldier. You went from bringing entire skyscrapers down with your fists to being some kind of… I don’t know, fucked up house husband. You’ve been keeping up the charade a lot longer than I expected you to.”

“Sure, yeah, alright, but what the fuck are you doing here _now_, Cross?” He eyed his surroundings warily for a moment, checking for listening ears, before he said hotly, “I’m not doing anything wrong. I even behaved myself and left your tempting little snacks alone. What do you even _want_ from me?” His eyes flashed dangerously. “I’m not going to ask again. Get to the point.”

Cross sighed. “Alright, fine. I mean, I flew all this way, but I guess we can just get right to it.” Zeus scowled deeper, and Cross faintly heard that low growl that he made when he was really pissed. Looks like he wasn’t going to get any answers today, but he could work with what he had. “Here’s the thing, Zeus. After losing you, Blackwatch assigned me back to my old post, chasing runners.”

“Why is this my problem?”

“Well, if my job is to catch runners, take a wild guess as to why I’m here.” Replied Cross mildly, taking a sip of his coffee.

He was expecting denials, mistrust, or anger. What he got was a sudden and unnerving stillness before Zeus closed his eyes and took a deep breath through his nose, letting it out in a huff. He didn’t immediately respond to the declaration.

After a while longer more spent sizing him up, the virus just put a hand over his face in what could only be resignation. “Alright, just… just talk, already, damn you.”

_Interesting._

Cross reached into his jacket, freezing when Zeus tensed, and then continued the motion with exaggerated slowness. He retrieved a manila envelope, which he laid carefully on the table between them. Zeus didn’t open it, instead opting to wait for him to continue talking. He looked like he was about ten seconds from reaching across the table to just rip the information he wanted straight from his grey matter, so Cross held up a placating hand.

“About thirty-six hours ago, I got word that something broke out of Gentek’s lower levels. It’s not unheard of, but it’s unusual, especially considering how stingy they’ve been with the details, since I have pretty high clearance when it comes to runners.”

Zeus nodded for him to continue, looking a little alarmed.

“A few hours later, whatever it was broke the island quarantine; we can only guess that it smuggled itself onto one of our transports. All I’ve got is a bus pass bought on a stolen credit card, and the name is unisex. I have no age, race, anything. I only have that much because I got lucky. Whatever they’ve got, it’s a bitch to pick up a trail unless you’re practically right on top of them, and I set off any viral detectors as often as they would.”

“The ones on the Apaches do much better picking up specific strains.”

“Well, I don’t have an Apache and they’re not exactly low profile. Anyway, they must have hitchhiked most of the way here, but otherwise the only data I have is that they must appear normal enough to ride a bus without issue.”

“And you think you’ve followed it here.” Zeus surmised.

“And why would it come here, if not to make contact with you?” Cross asked.

Zeus mulled it over, his hand resting over his mouth like any human deep in thought. He was momentarily distracted again by a passing waitress, thanking her with a tight-lipped smile as she dropped a cup of iced tea in front of him. It wasn’t what he had ordered, but he didn’t complain. He took a careful sip, the muscles in his neck tightening minutely with discomfort for a moment as the cold water hit his biomass, and set it down with the care of a man in a room full of spun glass.

“No one’s approached me, but I would have noticed something was up. I thought something smelled funny all day until I walked in here and got a whiff of you. Something like a runner?” He shook his head. “I should have noticed that right away, especially if it was a variant strain. It’s not a subtle. The smell alone would have been like them screaming their presence from a rooftop.”

“Nothing in the Hivemind, either?” That was something that the Captain knew little about. Zeus had explained it once before, and he had really tried, but it was like trying to describe color to a blind man. There were no words, no shared experiences to compare it to.

After a moment of silence in which the virus stared off into space with vacant eyes, he shook his head. “No, nothing. They’d blend in easily in Manhattan, but here, against the silence, they would stand out. I’m not picking up anything out of the ordinary besides you.”

“I’ve got a few of my Wisemen—”

He looked up sharply, before his brow furrowed. “You still have those?”

“Yeah, Zeus. I rebuilt my team after you cleaned me out last time. Thanks for that, by the way.” He was distracted for a brief second before he continued, and but he did see Mercer noticeably bristle at that old moniker, his already slim patience wearing ever thinner.

“You’re the one who trapped your stupid little wind-up toy soldiers in an active hive with _me_. And why did you even bring them up here? How am I supposed to know they won’t try anything?”

“Relax, they’re not that close by. As much as I’d love to let them come take potshots at you, they’re keeping a perimeter around the town to make sure the runner doesn’t get spooked and make a break for it. If you decided to kill me now, the twenty minutes it will take for them to assemble and haul ass over here wouldn’t be nearly enough to make a difference.”

“I highly doubt you didn’t bring at least some kind of firepower to come meet with me.” He scoffed.

“As much as I hate to do it, I’m asking for your _willing_ _cooperation_, so bringing firepower would be counter-productive. Everything I have with me is more out of habit than anything. And anyway, what the hell kind of firepower could I bring that would actually make a dent, besides a battalion of thermobaric tanks?”

Zeus opened his mouth, hesitated, then visibly changed directions. “You’re right, that wouldn’t be very subtle.” He tapped the tabletop a few more times before withdrawing his hand. “Then why do I smell Bloodtox on you?”

“If you had eaten me on sight, at least you’d get some indigestion.” Cross said wryly. “I’ve got a few toys, but you know I prefer not to play with them when they’re just as likely to take me out as you.”

Mercer took a breath, tasting the air. “New formula?”

“Both. Bloodtox rounds, and some grenades loaded with some new stuff. It’s something the boys put together for you, but I think it’ll work well enough on our runner, if they’re a derivative as well. They’re calling it Blacktox.” He smiled wryly. “And before you go getting any ideas, they made sure I’m immune to it.”

“And here I thought you wore it just for me. Really makes a guy feel special.” Alex thought for a moment. “What makes you think Bloodtox will work any better on your runner than it did on me?”

“Well, you’re probably more adaptable than they are.”

"What about the new stuff?" 

"Guess we'll find out."

“You brought an untested weapon to fight an enemy you know nothing about.” Zeus scoffed. “Very professional, Cross. Good work. For all the good it will do you, you should probably just stick to the Bloodtox. Probably cheaper, too.”

“Why the hell would I trust your judgement on anything? You apparently didn’t even know there was a runner here, and the Supreme Hunter fooled the shit out of you on the Reagan.” Cross shot back.

“That stupid clone of yours smelled just as much like Redlight as everything else in the Red Zones at that point, especially you.” Mercer seemed almost defensive. “It’s all over you _now_ and I’m sure you were decontaminated to hell and back before they let you leave quarantine, and it’s hard to pick out your particular strain over everything else.”

That was fair, but Cross wasn’t about to admit it.

“Look, this is beside the point.” Cross halted his wandering thoughts in their tracks, a little frustrated at the winding, pointless digression that their conversation kept veering off into. “What are you going to do about the interloper in your territory, Zeus?”

“If you don’t stop calling me that, I _am_ going to eat you.” Mercer was about to say something else, but his eye caught on a woman who was wandering back to her table from the line at the counter, and her face lit up like a Christmas tree when she spotted them.

It was with a morbid fascination that Cross watched this sweet-looking woman prance up to them. She was cute, with soft oversized grey sweater hanging from her shoulders and a sweet, round face. She smelled like cinnamon apples, perhaps a lotion or perfume, when she came to a bouncy but graceful halt at the end of their table.

Cross expected the usual snarky, terse remarks, that same unbreakable stonewalling he’d always gotten from Zeus. It was so strange to watch, and it shouldn’t have surprised him as much as it did, but his posture actually _relaxed_. He didn’t smile, but his eyes were softer around the edges, his face less drawn and angry.

“Hey, Alex!” She chirped. “Who’s your friend? I’ve never seen you here with someone who wasn’t D—” She put a hand over her mouth, embarrassed. “Oh no, I’m not interrupting a date, am I?”

Cross choked on the water he was drinking and shook his head fervently. He still expected some kind of blunt response from Zeus, like _oh he’s just some asshole I’m going to maul if he doesn’t go away. _

What he actually said was, “Hey, Clara. Captain Cross is someone I used to work with, a long time ago.” His tone as amicable, and it was so _weird. _“You should call him Robert, though. He loves that.”

Cross was so going to get him back for that one.

Clara just laughed brightly, and it was clear and sweet like a bell. “Catching up?” She turned to Cross. “Man, you’ve got to tell me how you pry anything out of this guy. Sometimes his students call him Professor Brick Wall. Oh, but I’m being rude!” She held out a hand. “Dr. Clara Steinberg. I teach humanities and gender studies at the college up the road.”

“Captain Robert Cross.” Cross answered politely as he shook her hand, inwardly doing the spit-take of the century. “Did you say _students_?”

She laughed again. “I see you’re getting Brick Walled too.” She shook her head at him. “Yeah, he comes up to the school all the time and does tutoring. He’s like some kind of genius.”

“You don’t say?” Cross cast a meaningful glance at Mercer, who looked like he wanted to bang his head on the table.

“Yeah! History, neurobiology, toxicology, biochemistry,” she ticked them off on her fingers. “You name it, Mr. Mendel knows it. He’s brilliant.” She praised, patting Zeus on the shoulder. When he shied away from her hand, she drew back out of his personal space, not looking miffed in the slightest.

And wasn’t that just telling?

“You don’t say.”

“But _Captain_ Cross? Are you military? How is it you know Alex?”

“I am,” he confirmed, and he saw an immediate opportunity for petty vengeance that he pounced on like a fox. “I’ve known him practically since he was born, but Alex and I used to work in the same place. Mostly virology, but he had a huge influence on me and my team. I wouldn’t be where I am today if it weren’t for him.”

Zeus looked murderous for a split second before Clara turned back to him and his expression smoothed over. Cross worried that he’d gone too far with his little joke at his expense, then decided he could get over it.

“That’s so cool! I didn’t know you were an expert in virology, too! Man, we should make some kind of a chart to keep up with it all.” Clara said good-naturedly, missing Zeus’s little wince.

“It’s great to see you, Clara.” He cut in pointedly, with a loaded stare at Cross. “See you Tuesday, for breakfast?” It was a polite but clear dismissal.

“Sure thing! I’ll let you guys get back to it. I didn’t mean to interrupt for as long as I did,” she grinned at him, open and sincere. “Nice to meet you Captain. Bye, Alex!” Then she made an odd, aborted gesture as if to give him a friendly clap on the shoulder before seeming to think better of it and shifting away, turning it into a friendly wave.

“Since when do you make _friends_?” Cross asked him, a little baffled. “You’ve never been good with people.”

“People are fine,” Alex was still watching her go, his tone incongruous with the soft look on his face. “You’re just a dick.”

Cross didn’t believe him, but he let it go. “Alex Mendel, though.” Cross sighed, a little exasperated. “Mendel, the geneticist? It isn’t super discreet, considering your meat suit’s prior occupation.”

Zeus puffed up like an angry bird, the good humor he’d adopted for his human acquaintance vaporizing in an instant. “Dana picked it, but sorry, I should have chosen something really interesting and unique like _Robert_, you _fuck_.”

“It sounds like you had a bunch of college kids picking one for you, Brick Wall. Though considering that you’re an actual three-year-old, I suppose you can’t be blamed for choosing something cringey.”

“You’re hilarious.” His tone was flat.

“I have to ask, though.” Cross fiddled with his straw. “Tutoring. I can’t picture the almighty Zeus teaching chemistry like some kind of mild-mannered post-grad. Why would you do that when you could do anything you wanted to? Skill isn’t a barrier for you, after all.”

“Because none of your fucking business, that’s why. Stop trying to distract me. Why is your team so far removed from where you think the runner actually is? Why aren’t they helping you here? You could have anyone else providing a perimeter. It’s not exactly a hard task. How about the Ravagers? I think I spotted a few of them up here once or twice, following me.”

“The Ravagers? No. Vasquez doesn’t play well with others and he certainly won’t work with me.”

“Point. The Seraphim? They can at least hold a line, if they scrape together all three of their brain cells.”

“Wiped out six months ago. Hydras.”

“Seriously? Revenants?”

“Gone. A hive collapsed and killed most of them, and the rest are in no shape to do any more fighting.”

“Damn, you guys suck at your jobs.”

“You know, some of those men were my friends. You don’t always have to be a dick.” Cross informed him curtly before continuing. “I don’t want my team hanging around you. That’s it. My Wisemen aren’t spies, Zeus, and neither are the Ravagers. They’re soldiers, and if I sent more than one, they would stand out. Besides, if I had them down here turning over stones looking for that runner, it would draw a lot of unwanted attention your way as well. If someone notices a bunch of Blackwatch militia hanging around, it’s only a matter of time before they draw the connection between us and you. Keeping them on standby keeps the heat off of this area, and off of you and your sister.”

Cross took a drink and kept going. “The point is, I don’t like you, or who you are, or what you do. But,” he held up a finger at the unimpressed glare Zeus gave him, “I respect that you are an enemy we do not need now or ever.”

Mercer was a statue of wary interest.

“Blackwatch has been planning for the ‘inevitability’ that you’d start making trouble at some point, and I’m not keen on the ideas that have been tossed around regarding how to deal with you. Most of them involve a lot of collateral, which is unacceptable. There’s no point in slaughtering the people we’re supposed to protect, nor in picking a fight with something we can’t beat.”

“That might be the smartest thing you’ve said all day, self-preservation wise.” Mercer told him seriously, but the corner of his mouth quirked up with a little bit of pride. “So what do you want me to do?”

“Honestly?” The Captain checked his watch. “I really just want you to stay out of my way. I’m going to look for this runner, and you’re going to keep your head down and be a good boy while I do the grown-up business. Don’t draw unnecessary attention to yourself.”

“Oh, is that all?” Mercer barked an ugly laugh. “You gonna hold my hand when I cross the street too?”

“I’m not asking you to just go along as if there isn’t another dog running around pissing on your trees,” Cross pointed a finger down to indicate their location, “I just want you to not make a scene, and to meet me here next week, on this day, at this time. In the meantime, keep your eyes open for any sign of virus that isn’t you, and keep me updated.”

“Why do you think I have to report to you?” Mercer leaned forward. “If I find them, why can’t I just eat them and be done with it, if they’re that dangerous?”

“One, because right now, I’m the only thing standing between you and your stupid little town,” Cross told him bluntly, “and Blackwatch throwing a nuclear apocalypse your way. Two, I need to bring them back alive, or at least bring back some proof that they’re dead, or Blackwatch won’t let it lie. If you do your thing, there won’t be any of them left. Three, because I have no idea what they’re actually infected with, or what Blackwatch has pumped them full of in the meantime, and if you eat them, the mixture could have ugly results. I’ve actually had time to think this through, so can you just work with me for five seconds?”

“I would, but I feel like you’re getting something else out of this,” Zeus said astutely.

“What, me personally? Sure. I like keeping you where I can see you. Right now, I know exactly where you are and what you’re up to these days. If Blackwatch decided to try to start a pissing match with you, who knows where’d you run off to and what you’d do in the meantime. These meetings are half runner hunting and half getting updates on you without risking my men.”

“I wasn’t even eating them!”

Cross pretended he wasn’t listening and instead dug around in his pocket again, producing a sleek black cell phone. He counted it a victory when Mercer only watched him with interest instead of getting his hackles up at not being able to see his hands.

“I know you probably already have one of these, Doctor Lecter, but this one is secure. That runner hasn’t shown his hand yet, which is unusual to how these things typically go.”

Zeus pressed his lips together in irritation, but took the phone, carefully not touching the skin on his hands. “Redlight should start manifesting physical symptoms three to six hours in. It’s a short incubation period.”

Cross nodded in agreement. “You’ve seen them. They wouldn’t blend in, especially not in a place this small.”

“So they’re… not here right now? Or they’ve got a hideout. Or they’re not infected.”

“Or, they’re not infected with the same predominant strain of Redlight we’ve been rooting out of Manhattan for the last three years.” He gave Mercer a meaningful look at that, but the creature only shrugged.

“Not my fault Gentek can’t clean up their own messes.” He sniffed.

“What, like you cleaned up yours, Zeus? How about you—”

“You know what, let me stop you right there,” Mercer cut in brusquely, with a tone that made Cross’s jaw shut with a snap. Tendrils of biomass writhed beneath the farce of skin before settling. If he hadn’t been watching so carefully, he would have missed that little display of inhumanity. He doubted anyone else noticed, but it was distinctly concerning all the same.

There was a low growl building in his chest, an alien, shudder-inducing sound that no other creature on the entire earth could even come close to mimicking. It was quiet enough not to frighten the other customers but loud and hungry enough to send tingles down his spine. Maybe he was imagining it, but he thought he could almost feel that sound vibrate inside his bones. Maybe the virus in his own blood was lighting up in response, anticipating a good fight.

They’d be disappointed, or so he hoped.

“I’d like to you listen to me very carefully, because I’m only going to say this once, Cross.” Mercer lowered his voice, fury bubbling through low, quiet, and dangerous. “It’s not _Zeus. I’m not an it. _I have a name, fucking use it.”

“Okay, you’re right. You’re right.” He interrupted before he ran a hand through his hair. “I told you I’m not here to pick a fight.” Taking a moment to collect himself after the pants-shitting moment during which he’d thought Mercer was about to lose his cool, Cross decided he’d better steer the conversation toward less dangerous waters. “_Alex_, look, we’re wasting time.” He held out a hand to shake. “Do we have an agreement, or what?”

“You’re still gonna send mooks to babysit me, aren’t you?” He asked acerbically.

“Well, I’d be pretty stupid to believe everything you told me.” Cross shrugged.

Alex stared down at the offered hand with a strange expression on his face. He was silent for a long moment, arms crossed, and he glanced around the room until his eyes lingered on the table full of students, papers and laptops strewn across the tabletop in preparation for what looked like a long study session.

Ms. Steinberg was with them, brightly pointing at something on one of their screens and waving her hands around animatedly, explaining something while holding their rapt attention. Her tacky, gold hoop earrings flailed about with her wild, lively movement. Over the table, she caught him looking and gave him a little wink before continuing on as if she hadn’t noticed at all.

He took another blatantly uncomfortable drink of his tea and then nodded. He didn’t shake his hand, so Cross let it drop to the table.

“Yeah, sure. Same time next week.” He drew himself to his feet, shooting him one last glare as he left to find his sister.

Cross watched him go, and then all of the tension left his body in a rush.

This is going to be so goddamn hard.

*** * ***

“I figured it would be harder to get it to cooperate.” The General mused. “That’s all you had to say?”

“It took some convincing,” Cross said. “But not too much. He’s surprisingly insecure about his position for something that’s practically invincible.” He ignored the urge to start pacing.

“You’re telling me that Alex Mercer took everything you said at face value?”

“…Should he not have?”

McIntyre shared a loaded glance with Vasquez. _Oh, for fuck’s sake._

“I mean, before the nuke, we had a few opportunities to… collaborate. Surprisingly, it usually ended well. I think he trusts me more than he likes to let on. Since the whole ambush fiasco, I haven’t given him a reason not to.”

The air was too warm, stuffy and weighed down with unspoken words.

“Okay, out with it.” Cross finally demanded.

“There is a Redlight derivative strain loose in the area that didn’t come from Zeus. But it didn’t break quarantine; we dropped them off on Mercer’s doorstep.” Vasquez interjected flatly.

“_Captain_,” warned McIntyre.

“We let a runner loose on _purpose_?” Flabbergasted, Cross opened and closed his mouth for a second like a suffocating fish before blurting out, _“Why?”_

“For the excuse.” McIntyre admitted, bearing down on Captain Vasquez with a disappointed scowl.

Cross caught on quickly, not letting his anger slip through his words. “You needed a viable justification for me to hang around Zeus without him pushing me away. For whatever reason, it helped that I did not have this information for our initial meeting. So why?”

“Looking for this runner will keep Zeus occupied for a while.” The general replied, tearing his eyes away from Vasquez, who looked about two seconds away from examining his fingernails. “I didn’t want you to be too nervous going in, because it would pick up on that pretty fast.”

It was the kind of reasoning that came to a man who sat at a desk for too long pushing pencils. A little pissed off, Cross pointed out, “He’d have been more suspicious if I wasn’t.”

“It gave you some plausible deniability, and it protects you to a point. If it catches and eats this runner too early in our game, their memories will tell it that we set this up, but that _you _were left out of the loop. It will likely still trust you.” The general waved a hand. “The convincing is the hard part, and its done now, so here’s your real mission.” He glanced at him. “And if you don’t stop looking at me like that, we’re going to have a problem.”

When Cross opened his mouth to ask, McIntyre scoffed. “I see that look in your eyes, Cross, even if it’s not on your face. So before you get all indignant, remember that it was you who had the location of the most dangerous being in the entire world and you kept it from me. You’re on thin fucking ice as it is, so buck up and listen.”

Cross nodded once tersely, but he didn’t say anything.

“Mercer is going to be occupied chasing this runner for a while. They’re not infectious like Redlight without blood-to-blood contact, and not as adaptable, but they’re more… cognizant. They’re a unique variant, hard to detect via smell and only tenuously connected to that weird little mental link the viruses all seem to have.”

“Hivemind,” Cross mumbled, his mind elsewhere.

“What was that?”

“Sorry, sir. Zeus calls it the Hivemind.”

“…Anyway,” he continued after sharing another look with Vasquez, who rolled his eyes and went back to staring at nothing. “It won’t question you hanging around the area and gathering information if he thinks you’re there to help find the intruder. It’ll be distracted. There’s got to be something you can dig up, Cross. Something we can use, if only as a hostage.”

“You mean to kill him,” He concluded, earning him dual incredulous stares.

“…_Yes?”_ Said Vasquez, a hint of indignation slipping into his posture. “That’s the whole point.”

McIntyre blew out a breath. “Of course we mean to kill it. You’ve got extensive files on its adaptations and a treasure trove of personal observations, but it’s not enough. We need something concrete, something that we know for sure can bring it down, or at least take it out of the fight. Somebody has to know something. Maybe it’ll let something slip. That’s your mission.”

“I still don’t get why we can’t just nuke the damn thing and be done with it.” Vasquez chimed in with his unwanted and useless opinion, as usual.

“He survived one already.” Cross pointed out, tiredly. He was still taking all of this in. More lies, more manipulations. Wasn’t this so very Blackwatch, though? Take something that could be incredibly simple to accomplish, and then muddy up the waters with half a dozen pointless lies to keep up with.

“That was then.” Vasquez countered. “There’s no way he’s at his full strength right now. I doubt he’s even got a fraction of the density he had when he left the Reagan. This time, it will work.”

“It might,” McIntyre conceded, but there was a muscle tight in his jaw. “But I’d really rather not draw attention right now by dropping another weapon of mass destruction on American soil. We’re already getting enough heat for the one with the tentacles and the one we set off outside of Manhattan; we don’t need a big explosion to make things worse.”

“This is easier, quieter, and safer.” Agreed Cross, coming to a decision. “Vasquez, just let me do my damn job. I survived this thing once at the peak of its power. If there’s a way to do this, I’m the one to do it, and I doubt he’s going anywhere soon if he’s been camped out for almost two years. I’ll keep an eye on him and gather information. We’ll bring him down.”

“Just try to do it with less casualties on our end this time.” Vasquez shrugged.

“Don’t do anything foolish, Captain.” McIntyre held his stare with weighty implications. “You’re up to this, right?”

Cross quirked his head, taken off guard. “I—Yes, of course, sir.”

“We can’t afford for you to go into this thing on a half-cocked suicide mission. This is not the time for that, do you understand?” The General’s dark eyes pierced through him from a tired, heavily lined face. “Get your shit together, because you getting eaten by Zeus would be colossally worse than you being killed.”

“...Yes, sir.”

The general took one second longer to decide he was satisfied with that response. “Then that will be all, Captain. Dismissed.”


	4. Chapter 4

Mercer was leaned up against the brick outside of the diner, arms crossed. He might as well have had his own personal little storm cloud over his head, not that the downpour outside needed any help. He glowered as Cross approached.

“It’s been three weeks.” He said accusingly and without greeting. He was difficult to hear over the pouring rain on the awning above their heads. “What makes you think they’re even here?”

“My sources are good. You’d know that if you actually read the report I brought you.” Cross fingered the hilt of his stun baton, hidden beneath his sleek black coat.

What he wouldn’t _give _for a good fight right now, just to let off a little steam.

He’d been running all over the place like a chicken with its head cut off, wheedling for information and digging for something he could use, but to no avail. No one knew anything he hadn’t already uncovered on his own, though it was difficult to ply out information like that when he couldn’t just ask directly. The General hadn’t given him anything on the runner, either, leaving him completely in the dark to catch this thing on his own.

Mercer turned his head to glare into the dark storm, but didn’t respond.

“You haven’t seen any signs of the runner? None at all?”

“No.”

Cross snapped his fingers to get his attention. Mercer jumped slightly, then scowled at him. “Hey, if you haven’t been looking for the runner, what have you been doing?”

“Nothing.” Mercer replied, and he looked uncomfortable.

Well, Cross could give less of a fuck about the creature’s _comfort. _“I would like a real answer, if you would please.”

“Same old shit, Captain.” He still wasn’t looking at him. Cross waited for him to continue, but was met with a frosty, taciturn silence.

“What, _teaching_?”

“What else is there?”

“_Why?”_ He wanted to know, because none of Zeus’ behavior could be reconciled with what Cross knew of him.

“Does it matter?” Zeus countered. He didn’t move at all, but the belligerence was in his voice.

“It might.” Cross tossed right back at him. Could he just get a fucking straight answer from him for _once._ He was so _tired _of this already. “Don’t forget, your life here is contingent upon my decision to allow it to continue. _I_ haven’t given Blackwatch any reason to come after you, because _you_ haven’t given me any reason, yet. If you keep being difficult, that’s going to change. _Why_ you’re doing this matters just as much as what you’re doing, Mercer.”

Mercer shot him a frosty glare. “I just like doing it, alright, you fucker? Want me to lay back on your chaise and tell you about my childhood, now?”

“You don’t have to. I was there for most of it.” Cross retorted. “Why is this different than helping us during the outbreak? Why would you rather be here than clawing through hives? You were _helping_ before!” Cross pointed out, wondering why he bothered with this. “What, you want to give something back to the community in exchange for all the people you ate, is that it?” Cross failed to keep a sneer out of his voice. “You like living a human life, and playing like you’re a real boy?”

“Yes, god damn it, I do! What do you even _want_ from me?” Alex bared his teeth, dragging the words out of his mouth as though they were attached to fishhooks that he had to tear out of his throat.

“You just sit around teaching the scientific method to a bunch of stoned twenty-year-old jackasses all day? Is that good enough for you? Sitting at a desk instead of being out there, jumping off of buildings like a lunatic and terrorizing the populace?” He huffed. “I don’t get it, Mercer. This isn’t like you.”

“_How the fuck would you know what is like me_?!” Mercer shoved away from the wall, gesturing angrily. His stolen face was tight, his eyes burning scarlet for just a second as he stared into his soul. “The only time we’ve ever interacted before was in the middle of a war, and for part of it you’d been replaced by a fucking… thing!” His hands worked uselessly, anxiously, like he wanted to take a swing at him but held back. He extended claws briefly before letting them reform into human hands. “You know _Zeus. _You know _Alex Mercer_, and he’s _dead_. He died three years ago damning an entire population. I am not him, and I am not an _it_.” He went on caustically. “You don’t know shit about me, captain.”

“Why wear his face, then? Why parade around in the shape of someone you obviously despise?”

“Well, I have other more natural shapes, but they usually make people scream and run away.” He snapped. “That it looks like a dead man doesn’t mean anything.”

“That isn’t an answer.” Cross replied evenly. “Coward.”

Alex, for just a few seconds, looked angry enough to actually kill him. Then he took a deep breath and unclenched his fists. “Looks like neither of us have anything. Meeting concluded.”

Cross felt frustration rising up hot in his blood, but he didn’t give him the satisfaction of letting it show. “Stay out of trouble, then, _Zeus_.” He spat.

He watched Mercer pause slightly at that, his back to him, before he slipped away into the rain without another word, pulling his hood up over his head and stuffing his hands in his pockets.

Cross stared out at the rain for a long minute, almost screaming in frustration. He should have something to show for this by now.

He began to suspect he was in this for the long game. 

*** * ***

Alex had no idea how he was supposed to find a runner with no clues, no Hivemind, and no scent to follow. What the fuck did Cross expect him to even do? He should just let the motherfucker deal with it himself. Let Blackwatch clean up after themselves, for once. He wouldn’t do that, because it wasn’t worth putting the town in danger, but it would be satisfying, for sure.

He was honestly close to giving up for the day. If this were a movie, this would be the point at which Alex would spot something just unusual enough to get his attention, and he would follow that lead until he conveniently happened upon some big revelation that would help him solve the case.

Instead, he was just sitting by himself on a park bench, trying to keep downwind of the park goers so he wouldn’t miss any new scents. It didn’t help that he kept getting distracted by everything that moved—pigeons, the trees swaying in the wind, butterflies, a bright red kite hanging far overhead—because that snappish distractibility came with the whole predator thing, and he couldn’t switch it off. He had a hard time paying attention to any one person for more than a minute, because it was a beautiful day out and it seemed like everyone that lived in the town was here enjoying the weather.

He was getting bored when he noticed a familiar pair of faces meandering down the sidewalk. They spotted him in the same instant, bounding up toward him like overeager golden retrievers.

Well, Jonesy did. Amir was usually more composed.

“Hey, Mr. Mendel!” Jonesy grinned at him, a half-melted ice cream cone in one hand. “What’cha doing here all by yourself?”

“Nothing,” Alex said, a little nervous, “just enjoying the day, I guess.”

“What, no Dana?”

“She’s on a date.”

Amir gave an involuntary snort. “Yeah, I bet you’re really happy about that.”

“It’s none of my business,” Alex said, as nonchalantly as he could manage. They didn’t look convinced, so he tried to redirect. “Shouldn’t you be studying?”

“Hey, that’s low.” Amir gently admonished him. “If you want us to go, just ask.”

“Yeah, it won’t hurt our feelings.”

“I don’t.” He denied, because he didn’t. “I just know what grade you got on your mid-term, Jonesy.”

“You’re so mean,” Jonesy laughed, plopping down next to him. “So, what are you _really _doing here?”

“I’m… looking for someone.” Alex confessed.

“Oooh, you trying to put yourself out there?” Amir smirked.

“What? No!” Alex didn’t smile, because that was something that didn’t really come naturally to him even after all of his practice, but these two idiots always knew how to make him feel like… well, a normal person.

A frisbee flew past, and it was fast and close enough that his whole body tensed with the effort of not swiping at it.

“Who, then?”

“I… I can’t tell you.” Alex declared eventually, knowing the mystery of it would drive them crazy. “I don’t know. It could be anyone.”

“Aw, come on.” Jonesy elbowed him, encouraged when he didn’t flinch. Sometimes he would do that, just give him a pat on the arm or a gentle, friendly punch on the shoulder, or any number of random little touches, if he allowed it. Sometimes Alex thought he did it just to prove that he could, that he wasn’t afraid to. He wasn’t sure who he would be trying to prove it to, though.

“Give us a hint.”

“I honestly don’t know either,” He admitted, his eyes snapping to a pair of swallows that passed high above them before he gave himself a mental shake and looked back at the crowds. “And I can’t tell you why.”

“Okay, it’s a game, then.” Amir nodded resolutely. “Is it that guy, over there? The one picking his nose?”

Alex considered it, but he didn’t look like the kind of person who was capable of breaking out of one of Gentek’s lower vaults and fighting his way out of quarantine. He flicked his infected sight on for a moment, just to be sure. The man was a dull red, blending in to his surroundings with no obvious signs of the virus. “I don’t think so.”

“How can you be sure?”

“I just… I don’t think so.”

“Okay, what about that lady? The one with the… what kind of hairstyle is that, Jonesy?”

“A bouffant,” he answered immediately.

“Yes, a _bouffant_.” And they laughed like morons.

He figured it was an inside joke. “Not her either,” Alex answered, his mouth quirking up anyway.

“At least we don’t have to ask if it’s a vegetable, animal, or mineral.” Amir said. “What about that sleezy looking teenager over there with the skateboard? He looks very suspicious.”

“Yeah,” Jonesy agreed, “he looks like a real sneaky little boy.”

Alex didn’t even dignify that one with an answer. He took one last moment and glanced around, scanning for any hint of the infection that wasn’t him. He about to switch off the extra sense when he thought he thought he saw something bright flash in the corner of his eye. He turned his head sharply to follow it, but whatever it was had vanished. When he finally did let his eyes blur back into normal sight, there were a handful of living things in the area, but nothing that looked promising; a woman and her dog, an old couple with a little girl in a yellow dress, another old couple feeding the birds, some ducks.

_Huh_. He shook his head, a little worried. That was weird, but it was already weird enough that he couldn’t feel the other infected at all. He could feel Cross, halfway across town, somewhere in the direction of the college, and his version of the virus was even more mangled than this supposed runner’s should be. So why couldn’t he find them?

Alex twitched when he felt Her voice. It was just a faint suggestion of a whisper struggling against the stranglehold he had on Her, but he didn’t listen to what it said before he forced it down viciously and buried it under every other memory within reach. _I don’t want your opinion,_ he hissed at Her, and She fell silent.

“You’re making this way harder than it has to be, you know.” Amir accused.

“Yeah, well, it’s not my fault.” Alex said defensively, now a little on edge. “But this is really important.”

And this was the other reason these two dumb-ass kids were his favorites. They picked up on the slightest undercurrent of frustration in his voice, and they sobered immediately.

“Sorry, I bet that’s annoying, if this is so important.” Amir said after a pause.

“Don’t…” Alex took a deep breath. “Don’t be sorry. I’m not having a good week. It’s not your fault.”

“Well, we can’t help you,” Jonesy shrugged. “But we’ll sit here for a while, at least until we finish our ice cream.”

“Yeah,” Amir agreed. “You can bounce your ideas off of us, if you want. We’ll be your rubber duck.”

Alex didn’t have any idea what that meant, but he felt something in his chest tighten. It didn’t hurt, though. Not in the slightest.

*** * ***

“Robert, right?”

Cross squinted up at the young woman standing over his table with a basket of French fries and a milkshake.

“Yeah,” he replied, holding out a hand. “You can just call me Cross. That’s what M— uh, Alex calls me. Nice to see you again. Clara, was it?”

“That’s me! Mind if I sit?”

He hesitated a moment. She seemed to like Mercer well enough, and he didn’t have much intel yet. She was a smart woman, she had to know something worthwhile. On the flip side, plying information one of his acquaintances could backfire on him if Mercer got wind of it.

Well, she had come to him, not the other way around. He smiled genuinely at her and made an encouraging gesture, so she slid into the booth and settled herself comfortably. They exchanged pleasantries for a bit before Cross reached across the table to take an offered fry and dip it in the frankly ridiculous amount of ketchup she’d poured for herself.

“How long you been working here?” He asked her.

“Not very. I finished my degree a little later than most, and I’m thirty-seven. I’ve only been here about eight years.” She glanced at him. “You know, I have to say, Alex never seems very happy to see you. You guys having a domestic dispute?”

He didn’t like what she implied with her expression, wagging her eyebrows at him with a grin. “Oh, for god’s sake,” he sighed, but he laughed for her benefit. “No, he’s just that way sometimes. He’ll get over it.” He thought about it for a moment. “Can I ask you something?”

“Sure.”

“How’s he been doing? Alex?”

“You mean after he left Manhattan, or since last week?”

Cross watched her, not letting his face betray his sudden wariness. “Why would you think he was in Manhattan?”

“It wasn’t a hard puzzle to solve. You’re a soldier, he consulted for the military. I know he has expertise in biochemistry, and a specialty in virology. The timeline matches up. You both have accents.” She shrugged. “Don’t worry, I’m not gonna go shouting it at everyone. I figured it’s something he wanted to get away from. I know I would.”

He had been dealing in shadows for so long that he had forgotten how much of the outbreak was public knowledge by now. The less she knew, the better, but he knew trying to lie at this point would either piss her off or make her suspicious.

He made a mental note not to underestimate cute women with glasses before he answered. “I won’t insult your intelligence by denying it. So?”

Professor Steinberg was distracted by a chunk of chocolate that blocked the straw of her milkshake for a moment, but she shrugged again. “I think he has PTSD, honestly.”

That… was not what he’d been expecting. “What, really?”

“Yeah. He has days where he’s fine, and then others where every little noise makes him jump out of his skin. He goes from invincible to fragile as spun glass like a metronome. I don’t know whether to hire him to guard nuclear launch codes or wrap him up in a blanket and give him hot chocolate.”

“PTSD is a different animal altogether, though.” He argued, because it was.

“There are also trigger phrases or topics that make him kinda,” she demonstrated putting a palm to her head, as though to subtly relieve a headache, “and space out for a few seconds. Flashbacks, I think. He’s always… a little different, after that happens. Whatever did that to him, it must have been quite the trauma.”

Cross was a little thrown for a loop, but her deduction made sense based on the facts that she had. She was whip smart, but obviously she was missing a vital bit of information. It wasn’t as though an inhuman viral monstrosity could have post-traumatic stress. Could he? Certainly not. That would imply he was capable of being hurt, and his brain wasn’t wired the same way a human’s was because, well, he didn’t have one, not like a human did.

She went on, surprising him. “I think it bothers him more than he likes to say. It can make him come off as a bit of an ass, sometimes. But I can tell he cares a lot about his friends.”

“That doesn’t seem like him.” He answered without thinking, a little lost in thought.

She shot him a strange look, and he winced inside. He should have just played along. If he was going to keep up the charade that they were old friends, he should at least _act _like he was already aware of some of her more character related observations.

“I can see how you would think that, I guess. I thought he was a jerk, at first. Most of us did, but… It’s the things he does, not always how he talks to you.”

“I’m sensing there’s a story here.”

“Well…” Clara glanced at him with suspicion that she didn’t hide very well before relenting. “Okay, the woman who works the front desk up at the school, Susanne, she used to hate his guts, because he’s not very chatty and sometimes he has all the social skills of a boiled potato and it makes him come across as kind of a dick. But he overheard her talking about this electrical problem she was having at the place she volunteered, because they didn’t have the budget to have someone come fix it. He offered to come fix it for her, on his own time, for free. You know, in that weird, awkward way that he offers to do nice things. Now sometimes when they’re short staffed, they call him and he comes to do whatever it is that they need done.” She snorted. “She’s got a huge crush on him now, not that he has any idea.”

“Huh.” Was all he said, but he had never been more confused in his entire life.

“And this one time last year, one of the women on the faculty was getting harassed by this nasty dude that hangs out around the restaurants by the campus, and apparently he tried to drag her into the alley next to the bar, and… well, I’m sure you don’t need me to—“

“Yeah, I get it,” He grimaced.

“Anyway, the way she tells it, Alex came out of nowhere, like he fell from the sky or something, and picked this dude up and lifted him like a foot of the ground with one hand, and the attacker got one look at his face and just started _crying_.”

_Christ on a cracker, Zeus. Way to keep a low profile. _“That must have been a sight.”

“I guess it was, because she was scared shitless for a while. But ever since then, when the ladies on campus are too drunk to get home safe or if they just feel nervous being alone, they call him, and he always answers. He’s like the unofficial drunk girl guardian angel,” She chuckled. “Though really, he’ll come for anyone. Walked home a lot of kids after Pride this year, too.”

“_Alex_?” He asked, arching an eyebrow. “Alex Mendel? We’re talking about the same guy, right?” He knew he was being sketchy as hell, but he couldn’t wrap his brain around it.

“Yup,” she confirmed.

“They call _Alex_ to feel _safe.” _

“He doesn’t have the most reassuring presence, I’ll admit. But he’s sweet, if you catch him on a good day and can get more than a handful of words out of him.”

He wanted to bang his head on the table. She thought the Monster of Manhattan was _sweet?_

Cross had personally watched Mercer punch his way through the hull of an airplane with his bare hands to peel the man inside out like a sardine. It had been Cross’s airplane, and it had been Cross inside, and Mercer had just laughed at him dangling from his arm before leaping into the ocean while the plane spiraled out of control. He only learned later that he had been saving him from a flying Chevy hurled by a nearby Hydra, but that didn’t stop it from being both humiliating and scary as shit.

There was definitely something he was missing here. Nothing he’d learned made any sense when held up against what Cross knew of Zeus from personal experience.

But how well did they know each other, really? When they’d worked together before, Mercer was a bloodthirsty, aloof sociopath. Cross had watched him fillet Greene’s hunters and infected like fish with a manic, wild grin on his face. He’d seen Mercer wade through seas of blood and viral goop, completely unbothered by the reek of carrion and the heavy, bittersweet stink of Redlight. He’d seen his— he’d watched—

_Stop. We’re not doing this now._

“You look surprised,” she said after a minute, and he realized he had completely zoned out.

“It’s just different than what I remember of him.”

Clara finished her milkshake with a thoughtful expression, and was obviously contemplating another when she asked, “You guys worked behind the quarantine, didn’t you? Wow. With everything I have to think he’s been through, he wasn’t even a soldier, was he? You must have seen some pretty awful shit, too.”

To be fair, what Cross had seen probably wasn’t worse than having to carry around the recorded memories of everything and everyone he had ever eaten. Just Elizabeth Greene alone must have seen and (and facilitated) some absolute and explicit nightmare fuel. “I don’t think I drew the short stick here, to be frank.” He answered noncommittally.

His pager beeped, and he checked his watch with a sigh. “Oh, damn, I actually have to go. I’m expected back,” he apologized as he stood, collecting his things, then paused and smiled to her. “Sorry, we spent our entire meal talking about Alex and I still don’t know much about you. Here,” he handed her a business card. “Give me a call sometime and we’ll get coffee.”

She smiled in agreement, but as he turned to walk away, she reached out and grabbed his wrist gently. Cross had to fight to keep his body still, because normally, any kind of restraining action against him would end with a few broken fingers, just on reflex.

He had been a soldier for too damn long.

“Could you… Look, I don’t know what happened to him, but I bet you do, and I bet no one else understands it like you do. Could you, uh…” She bit her lip. “Okay, I have to tell you one thing.”

“Okay?” He said, still standing awkwardly, half-turned to leave. He faced her properly, so she let him go.

“About a year and a half ago, one of the newer students who didn’t know any better came up behind Alex while he was already arguing with one of the professors, and he put a hand on his shoulder to get his attention and…” She struggled for words, looking visibly upset out of seemingly nowhere. “He just… He spun around and grabbed him, broke his wrist and his Ulna in a six different places.” She winced. “Didn’t even pull any kind of fancy self-defense move or anything. Just _squeezed_. I’d never seen a look on his face like that.”

Cross tried not to think about the fact that, were she more threatening in any capacity, something similar would have happened to her not ten seconds ago; he especially didn’t want to draw similarities between himself and Zeus.

“I could tell he felt awful afterward. I think the kid just scared the shit out of him, and he knew it, too, because the college tried to sue him and get him banned from the property after that, and a whole bunch of people signed petitions to keep him, including the kid who got hurt, and it was a big deal for a bit, and… It was just… to have a reaction that extreme…” She looked down. “I’ve been teaching here a while, and I’ve seen quite a few breakdowns. I used to volunteer at the VA, too, when I had time, and around the fourth of July it could get pretty bad. But captain,” She held his gaze, impressing her words upon him. “I have never once in my entire life seen an anxiety attack that severe.”

Cross just stared at her.

“I guess where I’m going with this is: could you make sure he gets help? Alex, I mean.” She pleaded. “Because I don’t think he would ever hurt a kid. I think he needs real, professional help, and he won’t open up to me that way, and I don’t think he’d seek it on his own. But I thought, maybe you, if you’re the only one that actually knows what he’s been through—”

His mind went a different direction while she rambled on. He liked this woman immensely, but he honestly couldn’t see why Zeus would want her hanging around. She was too keen, too insightful, and as far as Cross knew, he hated people who were particularly chatty, and she seemed to like to talk. Maybe it was just because she filled the silences, so he didn’t have to. Maybe it was because she made excuses for his less socially acceptable habits.

In any case, this time it was Cross who was at a loss for words, so he gave his assent, offering empty platitudes on his way out, promising to speak to her again soon.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> short intermediate chapter featuring bamf!dana and cross being a dumb asshole like usual.

“Are you ever not going to be late?” Cross asked a little bitterly, not even bothering to look up when his table was cast in shadow.

“Wow, not even a, _hi, nice to meet you, _huh?” Snorted a woman’s voice.

“…Dana, hello.” He stood up, holding out a hand. “My apologies. Captain Cross. _Nice to meet you. _I guess our conversations on the phone don’t count.”

She shook her head at him, ignoring his attempted handshake and sitting down without being asked. As he relaxed back into his, she flagged down a waitress to order a tea. Cross noticed it was the same kind that Alex usually ordered. “Alex has suggested that I come with him once or twice, but I wanted to talk to you alone first.”

“I see. Where is your brother, then?”

“He’s having an off day,” she told him dismissively, as though that explained everything.

He raised an eyebrow and replied without thinking. “What kind of excuse is that?”

Her face turned murderous in an instant. “Let me put it this way, Captain, since maybe you’re just dense. Right now, he’s sitting at home on the floor, drooling and rocking back and forth and repeating his own name to himself because he keeps forgetting it. I came so you wouldn’t be waiting here all night for him to show up when he doesn’t even remember you exist at the moment. How’s that for an excuse, you fucking dickhead?”

Cross took a long drink of his coffee, too impressed by her guts to be annoyed with her. “I can see why he likes you so much.”

“I wish I could say the feeling was mutual, Captain.”

“So why come meet me?”

“Because I had to tell you something.” She said, reaching across the table to snag his collar. “If you hurt him,” She hissed, her face inches from his and her breath hot, “or if I find out you’re lying to him, _I’m going to kill you with my bare hands_.”

“Miss Mercer,” Cross calmly extracted her grip from his shirt and pushed her back across the table. “We’re in public.”

Heedless of the handful of curious stares that turned their way, Dana spat, “When is it going to be enough?” She was still leaned forward against the table like she wanted to throw it aside and attack him, and god, they really were related, weren’t they?

“When is what—”

“Gentek made him, and then it spent the next month trying to kill him just for existing, and now you’ve chased him halfway across the continent to harass him some more. And for what?”

“He didn’t tell you,” Cross realized. “He didn’t tell you why I’m here.”

“What, am I missing something? Spill.” She commanded.

“There’s another runner here.” He said. “An infected. They’ve been here for months, as far as we can tell.”

Her eyes went wide. “Why has no one told me about this, and why haven’t you caught them yet?”

“Because they’re sneaky,” he told her. “They aren’t following the usual pattern. Alex can’t detect them in any of his usual ways, and I have no idea who they are or what strain of the virus they’re even infected with.”

“Let me get this straight,” She stopped him, pinching the bridge of her nose. “There’s been someone on the run from Gentek peacefully living here for _months_, and they haven’t made any trouble or started any plagues. So why are you still chasing them?”

She wasn’t wrong. He’d forgotten that Dana was always the more perceptive of the two.

“Blackwatch knows they’re here. If I don’t catch them, or at least make a visible effort, they’re going to send in a lot worse than me. Could be D-Codes, could be tanks. It’d draw a lot of unnecessary attention. Either I catch them, or they show up and start shit with Alex. I’m quieter.”

She stared at him for a long ten seconds before she started laughing. “Really, that’s all I have to do to make you go away? Find one person?” She put a hand on her face in exasperation, but she was still giggling. “Why didn’t you dumbasses just ask me for help?”

“Oh, I’m sorry, did you become a highly trained operative when I wasn’t paying attention?” And there was that elusive annoyance. He’d been wondering when it was going to make its appearance.

“I am a _computer hacker_ and a _detective.” _She reiterated. “Two-thirds of the intel Alex used to attack Blackwatch came from _me, _and I pulled them straight from Blacknet by myself_. _Why in the _fuck—”_

“Settle down.” He warned her, downing his coffee as her tea arrived. “Alright, Ms. Holmes, take this then.” He reached into his jacket and tossed a file on the table, still in its envelope. “Your brother never even read the report.”

“He didn’t even take it home?” Dana snorted and snagged it off the table. She slipped the file out, scanning it. “That’s it? All the king’s horses and all Blackwatch’s men couldn’t figure this one out? I’ll find them.”

“Really.” He said, flatly.

“_Really_,” she said. “Look, Alex is smart. A genius, actually. He has more collective knowledge in his head than the entire New York Public Library, but part of his problem is just that.” She frowned, still looking over the documents. “He can keep knowledge, and he can use it, but he sucks at using it _creatively. _If it requires a unique solution, or thinking outside the box, he just doesn’t have the processes to do it. Good thing he rarely needs to.”

“Huh.” Cross realized that it was something he’d missed. “You might be right. He is a mimic by nature.”

She nodded, pleased that he understood. “I’ve got this, don’t worry. Give me… I dunno, a couple of weeks.”

“I think you might be overestimating yourself a little,” He answered, peeved.

“_Please,” _She waved a hand. “At least Alex has an excuse. There’s a reason military intelligence is an oxymoron.”

“I take back what I said earlier; you’re a bitch and I don’t like you.”

“Awww,” She made little crying motions with her hands, mockingly. “Do you want my help with this or not?”

“For the love of—_Yes_, please. If you would.” Now she was smiling and he was too, a little. “Now begone, witch.” he shooed her. “I have to make my report and head back.”

“Alright, I’m out,” She got to her feet, still holding the file. He didn’t bother to remind her that it was top secret information. “Oh, and captain?”

“Yeah?”

“My point still stands. Don’t you dare hurt my brother.”

“Because you’ll kill me?” He scoffed, reaching for his cup.

“No,” she said evenly. “Because I got a lot of data out of Blackwatch’s secure servers before I left Manhattan. Yes, even yours.” At the disbelieving look he shot her, she gave him an exaggerated once-over, taking him in with lewd appreciation. “You look great for your age, by the way. Six decades is a long time to keep a full head of hair. And a child soldier, too! So many interesting little operations to read about.”

He froze with his cup a few inches from his mouth. She smiled disarmingly, leaning in and grabbing him by the shoulder.

“You think Alex made a mess of Gentek? He only had his fists and his wits. He’s not stupid by any means, captain, but he’s not _me. _I will bring your entire organization to its knees, and I will do it with a handful of codes and Wikileaks.org.” She shoved him, roughly, and called over her shoulder. “You have the benefit of my doubt for now, Cross. Don’t make yourself regret your next move.”

* * *

This was their forty-second meeting, and Alex was late _again_.

This wasn’t too surprising, but it was borderline infuriating. Cross had a lot to attend to, problems and duties that were only piling up, and he couldn’t even look at half of it because he was a handful of states too far away to do anything about it. He had to be there, but he had to stay here, too, and Alex couldn’t even be fucking bothered to be on time just once.

He brooded on this as he held his right arm under the table, seeking out a blood vessel he could find with his eyes closed now and sticking himself with the hated syringe. It flooded his bloodstream with the icy burn of the drug that kept him sane and mostly human. He had waited until he couldn’t anymore, and he really had wished he could have taken it after he’d spoken to Mercer. He didn’t like the weak, nauseous feeling to begin with, and he loathed the thought of dealing with it and man-eating viral monsters at the same time.

The drug didn’t have enough time to work itself properly through his system before he spotted a familiar scowl and a pair of bright eyes. _Fantastic. _

“Hey,” Cross tapped his steel-toed boots impatiently, rubbing his arm. “You’re four hours late, Mercer. This is isn’t that important, though. I can see how you would forget.” He made sure it was dripping with sarcasm.

“I…” Mercer shook his head as he shuffled into the booth. It was dark, the sun already having sunk behind the skyline hours ago. “It happens. Let’s just do this.” He looked tired.

A waitress came by to take his order, and he just asked for a tea, since the kitchen had closed some time ago. Thankfully, the staff were familiar enough with both of them that they didn’t mind if they stayed after hours a while. It was one of the benefits of living in a small town where everyone knew everyone.

When the waitress left, Mercer gave the air a little sniff. “What is that?” He asked, his eyebrows pinching together.

“What?” Cross glowered at him, still irritated at having been kept waiting.

“It’s— It’s almost like—“ He shook his head, and he was an exhausted kind of jittery, as though he’d overdosed on caffeine. “Never mind.” He sighed finally. “What for today, Cross? I want to get this over with.”

“Hold up. You look like shit.”

“Bite me,” Mercer snapped, before rubbing a hand over his face. Then he made a faint grimace and put a palm to his head for a moment before he dropped it.

Cross decided not to press the issue, and returned to his original curiosity. “So why were you so late?”

With an exaggerated sigh, Zeus threw his hands up, taking care not to clip the table when he did so. “I got distracted, alright? Time doesn’t pass for me the way it does for you. There’s a lot of memories in here that I still have to compartmentalize, because they like to pop up whenever they feel like it.” His eyes unfocused for a second before he continued. “It helps to stay busy, but sometimes I forget what’s happening in front of me because I’m zoned out in a kid’s band competition or some Gentek scientist’s wet dreams.”

That caught him off guard; he choked on the sip of coffee he was taking. “Uh,” he scrambled for another topic, far away from this one, because _fuck, _Alex’s dry sense of humor always got him for some reason. “Any sign of the runner?”

“I have jack and shit, just like every other time we’ve met. I’m telling you, Cross. Your intel is bad. There’s nothing here. There can’t be.”

Cross wished Alex was right, but he couldn’t exactly tell him why he _knew _for a fact that the runner was here. “Dana thinks there is.”

“Dana should never have had to worry about this in the first place,” he growled.

“Alright, then. Aside from that, how are things on your end?” He went for light and unconcerned.

“Fine.” Came a terse reply. Alex was sniffing the air again, frowning, and then he jerked his head again as though dislodging a fly.

Cross watched this with apprehension. “Is Mr. Yahn still hanging off of Dana like a baby koala?”

That earned him a terse shrug. Cross mentally updated his imaginary Alex Mercer bingo card, which also included glaring, growling, threatening, insulting, and the free space, uncomfortable silences.

“Not anymore.” He muttered with a slight wrinkling of his nose, as though repulsed by an ordinary human man for pursuing a beautiful young woman when Alex himself was literally the worst thing imaginable.

“What did you do to him?”

“I didn’t have to do anything,” Mercer’s mood was usually improved with talk of his sister. His face betrayed him when his mouth twitched. His eyes brightened a touch, a contrasting and fleeting expression which should make him look livelier, but against the deathly pallor of the rest of his face, it only served to highlight the distinctly ill complexion he now sported. “Dana can take care of herself, in that department.”

“She chased him off with a table leg? Why not just use you?”

“She doesn’t need me to wave claws at her boyfriends, she’s scary enough on her own. And she may be my sister, but it’s none of my business.”

Cross didn’t believe him. Dana could be intimidating as all hell, but there was no way Mercer would have missed an opportunity to protect his sister, even unnecessarily. “Sure, sure. What about that kid that pissed you off so bad last week? Joey? Jeffrey?”

“Jonesy, the little bastard. Yesterday, he asked me what titration is. He’s taking three advanced chemistry courses. _Three.”_

Cross didn’t know what titration was either, but he wasn’t going to ask.

Alex propped his head up on one hand and leaned on the table heavily, causing it to creak and groan in protest. “Sometimes I honestly can’t tell if he doesn’t understand something or if he’s being deliberately difficult just to fuck with me.”

Cross shifted slightly, trying to keep from tipping the wobbly table’s delicate balance. “Probably a bit of both,” he said slowly.

Alex was starting to act distracted, picking at the worn fabric of the faded red leather booth he was perched upon with an almost vacant stare. “I… shouldn’t complain. He’s…” Alex trailed off, still sniffing the air occasionally, which was starting to make Cross a little uneasy.

He grasped for yet another subject change, but he was relieved of that duty when the virus spoke, quietly, his eyes half-lidded. “Ever figure out where that hive was? The one that kept spitting out mutated hunters somewhere in Soho?”

“It was actually in East Village. Turns out there was an abandoned speakeasy with a pretty large basement, and Redlight had hollowed it out and dug it deeper with hydras until it hit one of the old subway tunnels, and— Are you with me, Alex?”

Mercer gave a little start, shifting until he looked a little more alert. “Yeah, sorry.” He made a lazy gesture with the hand he was leaning on. With the other, he was still fiddling with a hole in the booth, peeling away chunks to reveal yellowed foam beneath the cheap material. Cross tilted his head, watching Mercer’s mindless destruction but deciding not to comment yet; maybe he needed the outlet.

“You, uh, you feeling alright?” He probed, mystified. If he didn’t know better, he’d say Alex looked _drowsy_.

“Well, I haven’t had a proper meal in weeks, and I keep forgetting who I am and what I’m doing here, but other than that? Just peachy,” the virus replied deadpan, leaning his chin on his palm, half closing his eyes again. His other hand continued to dig at the faux-leather, and that was getting on Cross’s nerves now.

This was getting so weird that it took Cross another second to gather a one-word reply. “Oh-kaaaay…?”

“I think your… your Blacktox thingy is leaking.” Alex blinked at him sleepily, unconcerned.

“Are you serious?” Cross dug around in his bag before pulling out one of his Blacktox grenades. “Son of a bitch.” He said at the fine, clear fluid that streamed over his fingertips from a puncture in the canister. “You’re right. _Wonderful_. This stuff is expensive. Is this what you’ve been sniffing about all night?”

“No,” Mercer decided after dipping a finger into the Blacktox and giving it a taste. He made a little _blech _face and continued. “Bloodtox smells like nail polish. Blacktox smells like… I dunno. Nickels? Doesn’t actually have that much odor, even if it tastes like ass.” He sniffed again, and his pupils dilated wide. “What I’m smelling is sweet. _Really_ sweet.” He got a strange, entranced look on his face, and he shivered. “Whatever it is, it’s making me…. If you have anything else on you, you’ve got to let me try it, because it smells _amazing.”_

Cross was starting to get a little uncomfortable. “I don’t have anything else on me except poison, Alex.”

Alex flicked his tongue out like a snake. “Whatever it is, you had to have gotten it on your skin, because you’ve absorbed it into your body.”

_Aaaand_ there it was. “Don’t be creepy.” Cross snapped, his skin crawling.

His phone vibrated with a muted alarm. He checked his watch, and then rose to his feet, tossing some wrinkled bills on the table. It was getting late anyway, and the restaurant was deserted. Most of the staff was closing the back of house, and there was nobody within sight. The ambiance was peaceful, in a weird, liminal way. He kind of hated having to leave.

But if Alex wasn’t feeling well, perhaps it was for the best not to test his self-control.

“It’s time for me to go, anyway. You seem a little loopy, and neither of us have made any progress to speak of. We can make plans when you’re feeling better.” He politely didn’t point out that they _never _made any progress. “But I’ll be seeing you…” he did some quick mental math, but Mercer, whose brain was his entire body, was faster, the dick.

“The nineteenth.” Alex mumbled around the rim of his glass. He had now formed claws on the tips of the fingers of one hand for the express purpose of tearing up the booth material. He’d gotten quite a bit of it free and there wouldn’t be much of a seat left if he didn’t cut it out.

“Yup, the Cajun place, same time. And stop picking at that, would you?”

Cross must have gotten far, _far _too comfortable in Alex’s personal space. It was the only explanation for what he did next, which was truly, monumentally stupid: he reached over to grab Alex’s hand and pull it away from the booth material.

Cross felt an impact like a train and was sent flying a few feet. He had reflexes faster than a normal human, but it didn’t allow him to dodge the blow before it connected with his arm, neatly dislocating his shoulder. He wasn’t fast enough to stop himself from tripping over his own feet and tumbling to the dirty tile floor.

He had rolled through the fall and was on his feet before his brain had even really registered what had happened, automatically stepping into a defensive stance. Not that it would have done him any good if Mercer really wanted him dead, but it was more of a habit at this point, a reflex separate from his conscious decisions honed by years of training. Weapon drawn, one arm hanging limply at his side, Cross prepared himself for a fight anyway, but he didn’t find one waiting for him.

Instead, Mercer was tense and startled looking, rubbing his skin where Cross had touched him, his eyes _red._ He had jumped to his feet as well, only to move as far away from him as he could in the limited space. Alex had apparently shoved the table aside to do so, and it was crooked in between the seats, drinks scattered.

“Alex—”

“Just stand over there and be quiet for a second!” He commanded, and his voice cracked out of nowhere. The only other sounds were his shaky breathing and the water that slowly dripped from an overturned glass and accumulated in a puddle on the floor on the floor. “I’ve got a handful of your cells, and you smell _so good _for some reason and it’s— just stay there. _Fuck_.”

“Yeah, okay, take your time.” Cross agreed, before screwing up his expression as he forced his shoulder back into place. Relief flooded him as the offshoot virus in his system got to work fixing the damage. “…You alright?”

“The fuck you think!? You smell like Redlight and something _else _and your pulse is just so _loud_—” he growled when Cross shifted a little. “_Don’t. Move_.”

“Okay, okay! You’re right, I should have known better than to get hands-on. That was my fault.” His eyes watering from pain, he rolled his shoulder around to make sure he hadn’t broken off any bone fragments into the joint socket. Alex just shook his head, but otherwise didn’t argue. He was pulling himself together, at least. Cross gave him a second to calm down, wondering what he should do now.

“I didn’t realize...” Cross said quietly, and Alex didn’t have to ask what he meant. “Is it… like that, all the time?”

“Worse some days than others, and… You just— Don’t do that.” He still looked pretty out of it, veering wildly between alarm and anger and a strange malaise. “_Fucking christ_, don’t touch me without asking!”

Some Specialist he was. Now he just kind of felt like an asshole.

He searched for something to make the steadily growing quiet less uncomfortable. He opened his mouth, then closed it, came to a decision, opened his mouth again—

A waiter stepped around the corner with a tiny clipboard and a pen, but froze like a deer in headlights when he took in the disrupted table, spilled water dripping onto the floor while both men stood apart from each other, looking ashen.

“So… Did you want your check now?”


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> i'm supposed to be writing a paper for school right now

Dana fumbled for her purse as her phone made a loud alert noise, sudden and startling as a gunshot in the silence she’d been stewing in for the past three hours. She unlocked it with shaking hands and opened the message from… Cross?

**RCROSS 02:40 PM**: _Your brother almost took my arm off yesterday_

She shook her head. Fucking Cross and his bad timing. Why couldn’t he just go away?

**DMENDEL 02:41 PM**: _he called and mentioned something happened_

**DMENDEL 02:41 PM**: _But he didnt want to talk about it._

**DMENDEL 02:41 PM**: _what’s he all mopey about_

**RCROSS 02:41 PM**: _ I made a stupid mistake_

**RCROSS 02:41 PM:** _he was being annoying and I guess I got a little close_

_Oh, god damn it._

Cross answered his phone on the first ring. “Cross here.”

“You’re a moron,” Dana told him unabashedly, popping in her Bluetooth to keep her hands free.

“Hello to you too. What was it you said about being rude and not saying hello?”

She ignored him. “You are stressing me the fuck out, you know that? And I told him not to go, I told him not to meet you, because he was in kind of a state on his way out the door. But he seemed confident you knew better than to get in his space.” She let a hint of accusation slip into her words. Wasn’t he supposed to be a professional?

He sounded appropriately embarrassed. “What, uh… what do you guys normally do? At home? To avoid… uh… don’t you ever worry about getting, you know…” She knew what he meant, but she liked to let him flounder. Served him right. “Come on, I’m in public. Don’t make me say it out loud.”

“I ask him with my mouth if he’s alright before I put my hands on him?” She looked out her windshield, distracted. “He doesn’t hang around the house if it’s going to be a problem, anyway.”

“Is he home?”

“I don’t know, I’m running errands.” She lied. “He’s not with me, if that’s what you’re wondering. By the way, do you make a habit of putting your hands on people without their consent? Because if so, this working relationship with my brother isn’t going to end well for either of you.”

It wasn’t going to end well no matter what he did, but Dana didn’t tell him that.

“I didn’t do it on purpose,” Cross said defensively. “I wasn’t thinking. I didn’t realize it was that bad.” There was a pause. “Does he sleep?”

That came out of nowhere. “What?”

“Does Alex ever sleep?”

She took a second to consider what she’d be willing to tell him. “I mean, he can, but he doesn’t like to. He doesn’t get tired. If he looks tired, he’s hungry, so no touchy. It’s easy.” She heaved a long-suffering sigh. “Or you could just fucking ask him. I know everything makes him uncomfortable, but he’s a big boy. He can take it.”

She checked her watch. Ten minutes. She adjusted her seat belt and tried to look casual.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean tired.” Cross said. “Does Alex ever get sleepy? Like he’s drowsy and he wants to sleep?”

She stilled. “No,” Dana answered honestly, but her reply was delayed enough that she figured he’d think she was lying. It didn’t matter, because she was suspicious now. “Why?”

“He was just acting a little weird, is all.” Came the evasive reply.

She was getting frustrated. “Yeah, well, you have to get used to that, mister specialist. Honestly, if you two can’t sort out your shit, I’m going to make you wear the get-along shirt. I’m not afraid to use my powers for evil.”

There was a hilarious pause in which she knew he was googling what she was talking about.

“Given the topic that lead to this conversation, I can say that’s probably not the best idea.”

“Oh, now he’s considerate.”

“Alright,” he snapped, his good humor falling short. Alex must have really scared him, then. She made a mental note to ask her brother about it later. “Find that runner yet?”

Her stomach clenched. “I’m narrowing down my list of suspects,” she answered as casually as she could muster. She was proud of how smooth her words came out. “It wasn’t hard. You guys are just shit at detective work.”

“Gee, thanks.”

“Don’t feel too bad,” she said sweetly, a smile in her voice but not on her face. “At least you still have your youth.” She threw that out to remind him of her threat without explicitly threatening him again.

Cross hung up on her. That suited her fine; she didn’t need the distraction and she didn’t want him to know where she was, because she had been waiting in this parking lot for three hours, just like she had every day for the past week, and she hadn’t come to a decision yet.

This was so wrong. This wasn’t at all what she’d expected. She didn’t want to believe that Blackwatch had stooped this low, though from what she knew of them, it shouldn’t come as a surprise. But she was supposed to tell the captain about this. He expected results from her, and the repercussions could fall back on Alex if she didn’t.

But she couldn’t.

In the distance, a bell rang. The front doors of the building opened a few minutes later, and out poured a river of children, babbling excitedly and darting into the parking lot toward idling school buses or their parent’s cars. They were so wild and untroubled, so genuine and full of life that she felt a little smile tugging at her mouth, despite the rolling in her stomach.

A long time ago, Alex had told her that she would never have a normal life, not if she stayed. She had told him that she was fine with that, and she was. But sometimes…

The stream of elementary school children began to slow, and Dana knew she should leave before someone noticed that she shouldn’t be there. If she hung around too long, it would look odd if she didn’t have a child to pick up. She couldn’t muster the courage to go, though, even if staying was just as hard.

She’d been coming here every day for the past week just for this, as though the brief glimpse through a crowd would somehow give her enough new data to make her decision.

At last, a little girl made her way out a side door, walking steadily back to the house of the sweet older couple who had taken her in. She had shown up in town a little over a year ago, looking ratty and hungry and haunted, not knowing where she was or even her own name. There was a mess of confused mandatory legalities before the state, unable to identify her, had given the legal equivalent of a shrug and let her stay with them, at least for the moment.

Now her name was Mia. She liked dinosaurs and coloring and her favorite color was yellow.

She was infected.

It was obvious now why Cross and Alex hadn’t found her. They were looking for the kind of person that was smart enough to fake identifications, to escape a top secret government facility and make their way halfway across the country by themselves without arousing suspicion. They weren’t looking for a nine-year-old girl with no family and no indication of any ill intent whatsoever.

Dana wanted to throw up.

Maybe she wasn’t infected with anything particularly dangerous, and she was just an unfortunate victim who’d gotten luckier than was actually possible and actually escaped Gentek on her own. Maybe what she carried was deadly, and it was undetectable. Maybe it simply had a long incubation period. It would be a stretch as far as most viruses went, but then again, her brother could walk on walls like Spider-Man, so her idea of possible and impossible might be a little skewed.

And there was another option that had ugly implications, and she shuddered to think about it.

It could be that Mia wasn’t a little girl. Maybe she had been once and wasn’t anymore, or maybe she had never been in the first place. Much like Alex wasn’t actually a handsome but awkward young man, she could be hiding something equally deadly underneath her skin. She could be just as cunning and nasty and malicious as any of the viral creations could get, and if she started an outbreak, it would destroy everything that the two of them had built, and kill everyone that they loved.

Unless she could shapeshift like Alex, there was no way she should have been able to make it here on her own. It lent credibility to the ”monster” theory, but she just didn’t know.

There was no correct path, here. If Dana ratted her out and she was a monster, she would retaliate, and the consequences would be devastating. If Dana did nothing, the same thing would happen, but it might be a little later.

If Cross didn’t catch the runner, Blackwatch would come looking for Mia themselves, eventually. Alex wouldn’t handle that well, and nothing she could say would keep him calm enough to allow Blackwatch troops to go stomping through his home territory for however long it took to find her. And if he didn’t stop them, they would snatch Mia off the street and lock her up in cold white rooms and turn her into a lab rat. Or they would kill her.

And if Dana was wrong, she’d be dooming an innocent little girl to a horrible fate for no reason at all. No matter what angle she approached the problem with, there were glaring, dangerous flaws.

She turned over the engine and drove away.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which alex has another bad day and cross meets the bioweapon breakfast club

Cross tapped his fingers rapidly on his thigh, otherwise keeping hold of the stillness he had forced his body into. He was getting restless, shivery, a reminder that he was overdue for his weekly shot. It could wait, though. He hadn’t brought it with him, and it wasn’t like he could excuse himself from this meeting anyway.

“I didn’t make the connection until Mercer started acting strangely, and he’s the one who noticed a leak in one of the dispensers of Blacktox I carried around. I don’t think it did any actual damage to him, but maybe it had some affects we didn’t foresee on his strain.”

“If only you could convince it to run some experiments,” Vasquez mused. “But I doubt it would let even you do that.”

“He did taste some of it.” Cross wanted to laugh, because it was absurd, but he didn’t let himself, not in front of these two. “I think there’s something about it that smells good to him, as well. He kept asking me what it was and he was acting a little… well, feral. He insisted it wasn’t the Blacktox, but I didn’t have anything else on me.”

“This is good to know. If Blacktox makes Zeus dangerous before subduing it, we need to hit it with a high dose and make sure it is administered as swiftly as possible. At any rate, it was an excellent observation, Captain. We might make something of this mission yet.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“Yes, good work, Cross. It only took you a year to produce one worthwhile scrap of information.” Vasquez said, not moving his eyes or his body at all to indicate that he’d spoken.

Cross had honestly had it with him, because he didn’t even have a reason to be here, and he was acting like an asshole and disrupting the meeting. This mission had nothing to do with him.

“You know what, Vas?” He said evenly. “How about this. I’ll call Alex, and he can come and eat your entire squad in front of you, one by one. Then you can sit down at a table with him and tell me how easy it is to focus on your mission, knowing that you’re lying to his face while he’s staring at you like you’re _meat—”_

“Oh, it’s _Alex _now?” Vasquez finally flicked his eyes over to look at him. “You guys that close? First name basis, wow. Do you guys paint each other’s nails, too?” The words were leering, but his delivery was so flat, and somehow that made it was twice as infuriating.

It was also way out of line, but General McIntyre was eyeing Cross over like he’d had the same thought when he said, “Vasquez, be quiet.”

“If I call him Zeus, he gets violent. So I don’t. Excuse me.” Cross said without inflection, trying to hide the tiny spike of panic that the General’s searching gaze drew forth. “It’s just a habit.”

“I see.” McIntyre tapped his foot. “Has it found the runner, yet?”

“No, sir.” Cross hesitated. “There is something else I wanted to discuss.”

The general shifted, angling forward with interest. “What’s on your mind?”

His thoughts immediately jumped to Dana, and her threat, which held an impressive amount of weight, but he stilled his tongue. Whatever she had done or claimed she could do, she didn’t deserve Blackwatch’s attention, nor their treatment of prisoners. He could deal with her later.

For now, though… “If I may speak candidly, sir,” he waited for a nod of assent. “There’s something not quite right with this picture.”

“Elaborate.” McIntyre was many things, but he was not a patient man.

Cross had had about three hours to think this over on the ride back, and he thought he’d gotten pretty far, given that he’d been entirely alone with no one to bounce ideas off of.

“Mercer has been in one place for almost three years. It isn’t like anything we observed of him during the outbreak, and he’s broken most of his other behavioral patterns too. He looks for other things to consume, non-humans. Even the fact that he didn’t kill me immediately, when I arrived. Or any of my spies, for that matter. It’s unusual, but I don’t think he has any game plan other than just… existing.”

“So it’s playing human. Has it got you convinced?” Vasquez asked blandly, but the accusation was there.

_Dickhead._

Cross’s face remained carefully blank. “I don’t like him being out there any more than you do, I want him dead just as much as anyone. But maybe he’s a hornet’s nest we don’t want to kick right now, while we’re still cleaning up the infection here.”

“You think we should, what, just let it be? To disappear on a whim and go make a hive somewhere?” Vasquez raised an eyebrow, and the General simply glanced between the two of them thoughtfully. “You can’t possibly be this naïve.”

Cross didn’t rise to his taunt. Instead, he started pacing, unable to stop the nervous energy that sang through his him, Redlight pulsing through is veins and driving him to move.

He barely even noticed he was doing it.

It wasn’t unusual for D-Codes to have difficulty sitting still in non-combat situations, so the General simply eyed him warily instead of chastising him for breaking attention, already used to it. While it was out of character, McIntyre must have known there was no point in trying to get him to stop, otherwise Cross would be unable to focus on the conversation. He kept moving because he simply couldn’t think otherwise, over and over from one end of the room to the other, back and forth. Vasquez watched him without turning his head, the faintest hint of derision in his body language even if it wasn’t really on his face.

“I don’t think he wants to spread the virus at all, sir.” Cross reasoned. “He seems… settled, and that’s just too fucking bad, isn’t it? But our forces are already stretched thin.” That was mostly because Mercer had decimated them before he left, and they still hadn’t fully recovered since they were still losing men to Redlight at an alarming rate. “I think we can afford to sit on this one for a while. We’ve got other more pressing issues to deal with.”

“It isn’t that simple, Captain.”

Cross halted, the hand that had been hovering in front of his mouth while he thought falling away slowly. “What do you mean?”

The General nodded to Vasquez, who pressed his lips together in annoyance.

“What Zeus wants to do at this point doesn’t really matter,” Captain Vasquez sighed, as though explaining something to a child that he doubted would understand anyway. “That it exists at all is reason enough to go after it as soon as possible, but that isn’t all we have to consider.” His eye twitched when Cross started pacing again. “We’ve still got some samples of the Blacklight strain. There’s only a few of them, dead, and the virus is too complex and unstable to recreate without the original Dr. Mercer. But I have it on good authority that, from what we could analyze, all of the Redlight derivatives have a sort of… biological timer, I suppose you could call it.”

“What, at some point he’s just going to snap and start infecting everyone?” Cross demanded.

“That choice won’t always be in the hands of whatever rationality it’s been pretending it has. It won’t be able to stop itself.” McIntyre elaborated. “It’s in its nature, and the virus won’t let it stay idle for much longer, especially if it’s not eating enough.”

Vasquez shrugged, a stiff and robotic motion, as though he didn’t care and it didn’t matter. “Blacklight is a weapon. It’s programmed to spread. Zeus can’t fight it forever, and at some point, it won’t even want to anymore. So yes, captain. You summed it up nicely. Sometime soon, _he_ is going to _snap. _The longer we wait, the more likely it is that it will happen in that quaint little town when it does.”

“I’m sure it’s easy to forget when you’re having a conversation with it, because he walks and quacks like a duck. But he’s not, Cross.” The General added somberly. “It isn’t a person.”

Cross didn’t speak, absorbing this new information. He thought about Dana, who just wanted some scraps of her family back, and that sunny lady friend of Mercer’s. He thought about all of the students he taught, naïve college kids who still thought they could save the world. He thought about the over-talkative cashier, and the other customers in that diner, and the toddler in the high-chair three tables down that had been throwing bits of food at the walls to his parent’s embarrassment.

He steadfastly didn’t think about Alex.

His mouth went dry. “Of course, sir. I understand now.”

They were all in far more imminent danger than he’d believed. He would do this, if only for them.

* * *

Alex came to standing on the side of the street, and the sky was a little darker than it had been just moments ago. Had he just been talking to someone? He couldn’t remember, and his stomach sank. He’d lost time again_._

_Fuck. _He honestly had no idea what had set it off, but it scared the hell out of him. Sometimes he thought he had a handle on it, and he'd go a few weeks without having any kind of issues with it at all, and then out of nowhere it would take him by surprise and screw up all of the progress he'd thought he'd made.

His worst nightmare was that one of these days, maybe he'd wake up and find that he'd done something in a fugue state that he couldn't take back. 

For now, he needed to get home.

He knew where he was, but every time he started to head that way he got confused. The air was stiflingly warm, heavy with pollen that was sweet and cloying and overwhelming. Flowers were blooming almost everywhere there was dirt, white daisies and pink petunias, marigolds and scarlet geraniums and tiger lilies…

She tried to speak, to offer _something, _but he wouldn’t let Her, couldn’t handle Her and this at the same time. Inside, he ordered Her silence, and She fell still, because he couldn’t _deal with Her _right now.

Everything was too loud, too bright, his senses all screaming at him in tandem, food here, escape through here, danger, _threat threat THREAT—_

Something snagged, flooding his senses with hallucinated input for a few seconds before he was yanked back to the present like a ripcord. He only caught a few blurred, distorted images, a pretty woman in a white dress, a large brimmed hat perched cutely atop her head. She was beautiful, even up to her elbows in dirt, carefully settling a brightly colored bunch of flowers into the hole she’d dug. She wrinkled her nose and stuck her tongue out at something he’d said—

Except he hadn’t said anything. Alex didn’t know this woman. This wasn’t his life. He kept getting lost in someone else’s.

“Hey, Alex!”

He gave a jittery little spasm, in no shape to deal with anyone who wanted to call out to him, to walk toward him, who was she and why was she coming this way? The woman from the memory flashed before his eyes again, imposing her outline on the face of the person who’d called his name, who stopped a few feet away from him.

“Hey,” The woman he took a pathetically long time to identify as Clara huffed out, looking winded but pleased. “I know you’re probably busy.” She looked like she’d been on a jog, and now she was reaching behind her into a small, light backpack in a way that set the Blackwatch soldiers within him alight with screamed warnings.

“I can’t talk right now,” He said. His voice was a little too brusque, but he knew she understood, in the limited way that she could.

“That's fine.” Clara said, and he could tell she meant it. She kept a respectful distance, giving him plenty of space to back away if he needed to. “I just wanted to give you this.”

She extended her arm out to him slowly, with careful and obvious purpose, and he didn’t even register that there was something in it because her skin was close enough to touch, and she smelled like food, but his edgy, roiling insides screamed danger, _too_ _close_, and her perfume was engulfing him in its sharp, chemical bite, and why was the sun so _hot_ and _bright _all of a sudden?

“You don’t have to take it right now, if you don’t want to.”

He realized belatedly that he’d been standing there like an idiot, staring at her with a rigid spine and clenched fists. He forced himself to loosen enough to take hold of the book in her hand, and the smell of old paper and the yellowing pages of well-loved literature cut through his haze, dragging up more experiences that didn’t belong to him. Lazy afternoons in sunny bay windows, warm and content. Rain, cold, a cup of hot tea and the plastic of a quick-service restaurant tabletop as she waited out the storm… no, wait— that wasn’t right, she was at home with her grandmother, shakily reading passages from fading text to failing ears, but that wasn’t him either, he wasn’t— 

His arm snapped back on autopilot, suddenly but lightly lifting the book from her almost retreating hands, and he tamped down on his body’s weak suggestion to reach out after them, with something sharper than the malleable skin on his fingertips.

“The library in Sheachville had to close and they were giving out all of these books. I thought you might… I mean, I wouldn’t presume— I thought you might like this one.” Clara shifted from foot to foot, and he tore his eyes from the hypnotic motion to examine what he’d just snatched from her.

“_Frankenstein_?” He said disbelievingly, forcing down passages and quotes and high-school English assignments with herculean effort. He was almost offended before he realized that she would have no idea why it was so appropriate.

“Have you read it?”

“Yeah… wait, no.” He shook his head, and the voices faded to a more manageable volume, on the other side of a thin wall. It wouldn’t hold. “I mean, I haven’t personally.”

The odd statement, as well as his backtracking, earned him another interested once-over, but Clara seemed more thoughtful than anything. “It’s really good,” she informed him. “Mary Shelley invented the horror genre, and you have such a macabre sense of humor that I thought, you know, maybe you’d like some of the spookier stuff.”

“I—” he flailed internally. “Thank you,” He tried, realizing it was for more than just the book. He didn’t know how to say so.

“You’re welcome,” she said, and the lines around her eyes were soft, so maybe she knew what he meant anyway.

He opened his mouth to say something else, but something random caught his eye over her shoulder, and he didn’t have time to process what it was nor any warning before another memory clawed up at him, pulling him under. He only breached the surface long enough to grit out, “I have to go,” before he tucked the book safely in the crook of his arm and darted away.

“Let me know if you like it!” She waved, then shook her head before reinserting an earbud into her ear and continuing her jog in the opposite direction.

The next half hour was a blur of confused images and thoughts, snatches of incoherent feelings and sensations. He managed to pull himself out of them a few times, and Dana had snapped him out of it too, once or twice— was it more? He couldn’t _remember_— but he knew from experience that he would just have to ride it out until it passed on its own.

He was perched in an armchair, his back propped up against one arm of it, his legs thrown lazily over the other, staring into the dark, ash-stained stone of the fireplace that they never used. Alex liked the smell of the smoke, but Dana insisted against burning things in the house, since she’d had asthma as a child, and he never really found a good reason to argue it. It wasn’t the same as the tangy, acrid sting of gunpowder and explosives, anyway.

Wait, when had he gotten home? When had he sat down? He didn’t know.

He could feel it surging in him again, in the back of the tangled web of neurons that functioned as his brain. Here again was someone else’s life, and again their gruesome death, but then he faintly registered the soft footsteps of his sister padding down the hall in her pajamas and fluffy house shoes. He could smell the fabric dye from all the way down the hall, and knew they were blue before she made it into his field of vision. There was sugar, too, but it was something he’d never eaten so he didn’t know what it was until she was standing in front of him.

“What’s this? A library book?” Dana asked, setting down a half-eaten carton of ice cream and leafing through the book Clara had given him. Her voice was soft, faint enough that most wouldn’t be able to understand her. She seemed to instinctually understand when he needed the quiet, and when he needed noise to drown out his own head so that he wouldn’t need the quiet later.

He was grateful to her, infinitely, and he clung to that like a lifeline while he scraped together a response. When he gave his answer, she blinked at him.

“Okay, so that was German.” She informed him. “Can you try again?”

He took another minute, and she didn’t hurry him. “Clara gave it to me,” he finally said through clenched teeth.

“Aww, it was sweet of her to think of you. A little ironic, though.” She flipped to a random page, as if there’d been no pause. She wasn’t offended by the wooden delivery of his response. “I wrote a paper on this one in high school. You should give it a read.”

“I already know the story.” Came the reply in a moment of respite before another wave threatened to pull him down. “Lots of people have read it, so… I’ve read it.”

“Not personally, though.” she said softly, her voice tinged with sadness. “Right?”

He fought to string words together, in English. It took a moment. “No, I don’t think I’ve ever read a novel personally.” He flinched minutely at something that passed through his head and out again without him attempting to examine it. Whatever it was, he didn’t want to see it. It wasn’t more important than Dana.

But then another one reared up in its place, sharp and vivid and unstoppable because it had been one of his own, so the choice was taken from him and he was drowning.

_He looked down at the handful of cash in his hands, feeling completely at a loss. It was one thing that he had to eat human food, since it tasted nice when he gave himself taste buds, and it made him look more normal. It was another to have discovered that he had human dietary restrictions, which was just _embarrassing_. He was dreading the interaction with the cheery looking cashier when someone bumped into him from behind, and Alex started. The involuntary jerk of his shoulder reconnected with whoever it was and knocked a precarious stack of papers from their hands. _

_“Oh, sorry— Aw, gosh.” Came a voice, a young man with long blonde hair pulled into a tight ponytail. He had a green army-style jacket thrown over his shoulder, probably one of those new age hipsters._

_“Uh,” Said Alex eloquently. “Sorry.” He parroted, and stepped back carefully, letting them scoop up what looked like a pile of class notes. _

_“It’s alright, man. I ran into you. That was my bad.” He waved a hand with a lazy drawl, tipping the delicate balance of the stack in his arms and sending a small packet of stapled papers sliding from his grip. Alex reached out without thinking, snatching it out of the air deftly. He meant to replace it on the stack where it belonged, but stopped, frowning. _

_“What?” The young man asked._

_He shook his head. He had caught a glimpse of a handful of words— Russian was the answer provided helpfully by a younger man from the Ukraine whom he’d consumed in his first few days of life. The front page was a mostly completed homework assignment, but…_

_“Nothing.” He mumbled awkwardly, handing it back and turning back to the line. It was shorter than it had been a moment ago._

_“Aw, don’t be like that. Whatcha got? Come on, you won’t hurt my feelings.” The kid encouraged, and Alex sighed and turned back around._

_“It’s just… You’ve got this one wrong,” He provided as obligingly as he could, pointing to the offending bit of syntax. “This line here. I just thought you’d want to know before you turned it in…” he groped for the appropriate social etiquette, but the kid glanced down at his assignment again with an interested wrinkle between his eyebrows. _

_“It means _to stop, _right?”_

_“You confused the verb pairs here. This one means to stop _movement_, this one means to stop an _action_.”_

_“Whoa,” The kid laughed. “You’re right, thank you! I can’t believe I keep getting those backward. Ugh,” he groaned. “This is so hard. Hey, how the heck do you know Russian?”_

_“I’m good with languages,” Alex shrugged, not wanting to elaborate, before he paused again, giving the page another once over with a little cringe. “…It’s not the only mistake.”_

_“Aw, beans,” he put a hand to his forehead, but his eyes danced. “I’m Jonesy. That’s what my friends call me anyway. Listen, could you— I mean, if you’re not busy, could you help me with this? You seem pretty good at it, and I’m dying over here.” He smiled, holding out a hand at an awkward angle, still trying to hold onto all of his stuff. _

_Alex hesitated, then took it, shaking it as gently as he could. The kid, Jonesy, gave a little wince, so obviously he still needed to work on “gentle.” _

_“Alex,” He said, a little apologetically, hoping the kid wouldn’t ask for a last name. “And yeah, I guess so?”_

_“Awesome! Oh, I think it’s your turn. Sorry, I didn’t know you were in line.”_

_He realized with a start that the cashier was looking at him expectantly, and he panicked for a second before Jonesy said, “oh, dude, get one of the pastries. This place has the best baked stuff in town.”_

_Infinitely grateful, Alex paid and mumbled, “thanks.”_

_“Thank you, man! You’re a lifesaver. Seriously. __Ты_ _женщина__.” _

_Alex stopped in his tracks for a second, giving Jonesy a once over before an incredulous little twitch pulled at the corner of his mouth. “Whatever you tried to say there, I don’t think it was what came out.”_

_“I’ll get it eventually.” Jonesy said with a big smile, and Alex felt himself relax a little. This could be nice. Maybe he—_

Alex was dropped back into the present with a shudder and a ragged breath, casting his eyes around frantically before they rested on Dana’s face and he calmed, just a little. She was still holding the book, kneeled to eye-level, flipping through the pages mindlessly.

“Hey,” she said when she noticed he’d resurfaced, pursing her lips with worry. “You back?”

He nodded, turning his eyes away and not trusting himself to speak. She took one last look at the novel before holding it out to him, her fingers carefully positioned only the far side of it, so he could take it without contact with her.

He took it.

“You should give it a try,” She shrugged. “Nothing else to do, if you’re going to be hanging around the house today.”

He shook his head to avoid answering her, his mouth set in a grim line before he flipped it open to the first page. His eyes swam before focusing on words, and it took way too long before he began pulling them together into sentences and paragraphs, into meaning. It got easier after about ten minutes, and he could hear Dana moving around in the kitchen. The pattern of her breaths could be strangely soothing, at times.

He finished it three hours later, and he didn’t realize for another hour still that the voices were calm and quiet. Not silent, not gone completely, because that never meant anything good. But the sea had calmed a little, the high tide returning to a more manageable pattern of languid waves.

Dana was on the sofa next to him, asleep with a pair of headphones around her neck and a half-eaten bowl of ramen in her lap. He hadn’t even noticed she was there. With a small, fond smile, he carefully removed her headphones, turning off the music with the press of a button—it was _Dark Side of the Moon_ again, how many times could she listen to that _fucking album—_and he took the bowl to the kitchen sink.

Then he paused, not trusting this strange equilibrium, before moving silently over to Dana’s bookshelf and snagging down a book at random.

* * *

“I know what you’re up to.”

It was a young man Cross didn’t know, strikingly handsome, tanned, and immaculately dressed in a navy blue, freshly pressed button down and form-fitting slacks. He was standing over his table with a sleek, expensive looking laptop tucked under one arm and a can of soda in his other hand, which he took a casual sip of while he gauged Cross’s reaction.

He glanced around. The diner was open late into the night, and he was grateful for the fact that it was loud enough that he could have a conversation without much fear of being overheard. That didn’t stop him from scanning the room anyway, verifying that the exits were clear and counting the people in it (and he could thank Alex for that habit.)

“What makes you think I’m up to anything?” Cross replied, as if that weren’t the dodgiest answer he could give.

“You’re right,” The young man raised an eyebrow. “You wouldn’t be up to anything, now would you, Commander Robert Cross, Specialist of Blackwatch? Wouldn’t have anything at all to do with the fact that my friend and tutor, Alex Mendel, is in fact Alexander J. Mercer, alleged terrorist and living bioweapon?”

Cross didn’t move, not allowing his face to change from the stony expression he’d set it in, but that was proof in and of itself. “Don’t say that name so loud.” He chided calmly, pushing aside his tablet for later. “Even if you were wrong, and there’s not really much use denying it at this point, it’s a name that will draw some nasty attention in any context.”

In favor of responding, the young man turned halfway back in the direction he’d come from, waving a few people over.

One of them had to be in his early twenties, close in age and wearing a green army jacket. He looked like one of those new-age hippies, with long blonde hair artfully drawn back into a ponytail at the nape of his neck. The other Cross recognized from their brief interactions as Clara Steinberg, wearing a blazer and a pencil skirt and looking more serious than Cross had ever believed possible.

They wordlessly scooped up their food and laptops, wandered over to his table, and sat without further invitation, resuming their meals and as though nothing had changed, but they’d both powered off their devices.

"Alright,” Cross snorted, amused by the theatrics. “What tipped you off?”

“He’s a weirdo,” said the hippie looking guy seated next to Clara, leaning back in his seat with a carefully curated air of indifference. “He sounds like a New Yorker. And he didn’t alter his appearance, like at all.”

"So he shares a resemblance and he has an accent. Lots of people are from New York. That isn’t proof.” Cross resisted the urge to cross his arms.

“Please,” Said the hippie.

“It was kind of obvious,” said the handsome one.

“He ripped the arm off of his chair once when someone mentioned Manhattan, not even in context.” Said the hippie. “And he broke my arm, barely even flexed a muscle to do it.” He waved the arm in question at him, and Cross could see a handful of surgical scars running from his wrist to his elbow.

“I caught him in one of his episodes and took him home, not that he remembered after. Dana couldn’t really deny it at that point.” Clara said, giving him pause.

Cross blinked. “_Episodes?”_

“If you don’t know, he probably likes it that way, so I’m just gonna leave it at that.” 

“Alright, I'm kind of at a disadvantage here.” Cross admitted. “Who are you two again? Isn’t it past your bedtimes?” He plied, deciding to ignore that last little nugget of information for now.

“That’s Jonesy.” Clara nodded a head at the one whose arm Alex had apparently broken. “And Amir.”

The boys’ names sparked vague recognition; they were Mercer’s students. Jonesy was the pain in the ass and a pretty skilled pianist, or he had been, before the nerve damage had set in. Amir was a genius chemist with a weekend internship at a forensics lab a few towns over.

“And I suppose he doesn’t know that you know?”

“Nope,” Said Jonesy simply, stuffing a biscotti into his face and making a big crumbly mess. He washed it down with a coffee so strong Cross could smell it from a yard away, though that might have more to do with his own enhancements than anything. “It’d only freak him out if we said anything.” Jonesy went on. “He might bolt, and that wouldn’t do anyone any good.”

“Alright,” Cross glanced at his tablet pointedly. “What do you want from me, then?”

“How about you leave him alone?”

“He’s not bothering anyone. Maybe he was at first, but he’s really trying.” Jonesy said. “Trying to be human, to be normal. Who cares if he’s just a bunch of teeth and pasta salad under there?”

The mental image almost derailed him enough to miss Amir’s soft-spoken addition. “If you try to start a fight with him now, you’re gonna force him to make a mess and you know it.”

“Or, he’ll go quietly to keep us safe.” Jonesy added. “And whatever shady government organization gets hold of him now has access to the most deadly virus in the entire world.”

Cross pretended he hadn’t already made his decision, using the minute they gave him to consider his strategy. “Who else knows?” He asked.

“A handful of others, but they won’t talk. We think someone pretty high in the pecking order with the county law enforcement has to know, too.” Clara said. “They sure are complacent when rapists and drug lords go missing in the nearby cities without traces. Whatever keeps him fat and happy.”

“And it must not be enough, because I wouldn’t say he’s fat and happy, either.” Amir mused. “He never looks healthy.”

“I’m telling you, he eats stray dogs and cows and stuff. And he’s a virus, why would he look _healthy_?” Jonesy crossed his arms. Cross helpfully did not bring up that they were both correct, since this sounded like an old argument and he really didn’t want to get involved.

“Anyway, we keep an eye on people around town, and every time it looks like someone’s figured it out, we confront them and lay out some facts.” Clara pushed forward.

“_Facts_,” Cross repeated, incredulous. 

“Such as,” Jonesy wound up, staring him down with unnerving intensity for such a goofy looking kid with such powerful “surfer dude” vibes, “If anyone important get wind of the fact that the viral equivalent of a walking nuclear weapon is holed up in a town of less than 15,000 teaching AP science, they’re either gonna send in the cavalry and turn this place into a war zone, or they’ll drop another nuke on his head, and they won’t care who gets vaporized in the process. In any case, either we all die together in a hellish radioactive blast, or both us and his sister would die, and he _wouldn’t_, and I don’t have to explain to you why that is less than ideal.”

“It’d be a bloodbath if anyone laid even a finger on his sister, that’s for sure.”

Jonesy smirked while Amir primly brushed biscotti crumbs from the table. “And no one messes with Mr. Mendel’s kids. Everyone knows that by now.”

“What’s he doing that’s so bad, anyway?” Amir demanded. “We know the military kills more civilians in the Red Zones in a day than he does violent criminals in the past three years.”

“And he’s actually doing it to help, unlike Blackwatch who just has a boner for murder.” Jonesy said.

"He's doing it because he's hungry," Cross scoffed. 

“He’s not hurting anyone without a really good reason. In fact, he’s trying his best to keep the town safe, as far as we can tell.” Clara argued. 

It was hard to swallow the fact that these naïve kids clearly loved him enough to risk themselves to keep his secret. Mercer really had them fooled, didn’t he? At this point, he felt like Ms. Steinberg should know better, but god, these kids were the future. They were brave, clever, and practical. They just… they had no idea. None, whatsoever. They hadn’t seen it.

They hadn’t seen _anything_.

“It really doesn’t bother you at all, what he does?” He asked instead.

Clara huffed. “I feel safer in a room alone with Zeus than I do with Mr. Frakes from my Thursday evening class. At least Alex can keep his tentacles to himself.”

“Honestly, you’d think Frosted Frakes would know better than to grab the ass of the person who grades his mid-terms.” Mused Jonesy.

“Just don’t let him hear you call them tentacles,” Cross said, a little amused despite himself. “I think he only lets me get away with it because I’ve known him, well, literally his entire life. Anyway,” he said tiredly, stretching his arms above his head. “You’re in luck, okay? Calm down. I’m not here to start anything with him or your little bioweapon breakfast club.”

“Why are you here, then?” Amir asked him, eyes narrowed.

“He and I have an arrangement.” He waited for a moment as a waitress passed in and out of earshot, taking the moment to consider what he could tell them. _Well, the best lies are half-truths. _“He gives me regular updates, if only so I know he’s keeping his claws mostly to himself, and I keep most government officials off his ass as best as I can. Don’t worry,” he waved a hand at the looks of dawning horror on their faces. “Neither the current president nor vice president have any idea about this. I wouldn’t trust those chuckle fucks to pick paint colors for my bathroom, let alone know where the deadliest weapon in the entire world is hanging his hat. Luckily, my C.O. agrees with me.”

The group exchanged looks again, and Jonesy raised his eyebrows at Clara, who looked at Amir. They all nodded at once.

“I told you guys he was cool,” Said Jonesy in one rush of breath. “Can we add him to the group chat?”

“Pardon?” Cross blinked, blindsided by the tone shift.

“We have a group chat,” Jonesy informed him excitedly. “We’ll add you, look,” he whipped out his phone and, after inputting a passcode, turned the screen where he could see it. All he caught was the last handful of messages sent, and the group name printed in a sarif font at the top, _Olympus_.

“Because he’s Zeus,” Jonesy grinned, whispering, “It’s all coded, get it? Look, Ares is you and Hestia is his sister.”

From the corner of his eye, he could see Clara shake her head in exasperation, putting a hand on her face.

“Would you at least encrypt that shit?” Cross pushed his phone down to the table before anyone else could see it. “So I won’t have to worry about you dramatic little bastards letting loose dangerous military secrets because you’ve been talking matters of national security on _Facebook?”_

“First of all, it’s not on Facebook. That’s nasty.” Jonesy wrinkled his nose.

“It was password protected,” Clara defended, though he got the feeling she was just playing devil’s advocate more than anything. “Who’s gonna dig around the group chat of a couple of dumb, horny college boys? All they do is talk about boobies.”

“Hey!” Jonesy took offense. “We talk about butts, too!”

“It looks like history study guides at first glance.” Amir pointed out.

“That’s… alright, fine.” Cross conceded. “You guys are doing a pretty good job, considering. I’m actually a little impressed.” The kids tried not to look too pleased, and he had to do the same because _holy hand grenade_, he had insider spies who were closer to Mercer than almost anyone. This was spectacular. “Just— let me handle it from here, okay? I know you guys have your weird virus defense squad thing all figured out, but I have someone to report to.”

“That’s fair,” Jonesy agreed. “We won’t stop, but we’ll at least keep you informed.”

“I can draw up a list of everyone who knows,” Said Clara. “If that helps.”

“It would, thank you.”

After fishing out a piece of paper and a pen, Clara jotted down a handful of names. Some of them, Cross even recognized from his own investigations, and it certainly explained some of the odd or suspicious looks he’d gotten while he’d been poking around.

“Wait a second... I know these names. The bursar _and _the librarian?” 

Clara pointed to another name on the list. “And a history professor he got into it with, some time ago. These two cattle-ranchers,” she gestured to two more, “the chief of police,” she indicated the names as she listed them off, “and a very confused dungeons and dragons group that just so happened to be having a session at the community center when Alex scooped up a rabid dog too close to the windows. They're on the chat too, for emergencies."

Cross put his head in his hands. “_Fuck, _seriously?”

Jonesy elbowed Clara impatiently. “Can we ask him now?”

“Really, that’s the first and most important thing to you? You _have to—”_

“Can he get knocked out?” Jonesy interrupted, before Cross could ask. It was Amir’s turn to palm his face.

“I am so sorry about him,” he said. “Feel free to smack him if he gets annoying.”

“No, not at all. It’s a good question. I know he can choose to sleep if he wants to, but he doesn’t.”

It was fair to give a little information to get information, anyway, and Cross could just lie about anything that might be more than they needed to know. He picked through his memory for the file he’d read a long time ago, realized he couldn’t remember, and then realized he actually _did _know, because Mercer himself had mentioned it to him once, pretty recently. It had been a concern of his, that it would happen in the middle of a fight if he got on the wrong side of one of Cross’s bigger weapons.

“He can fall unconscious if he takes enough damage. He goes into kind of a…” how had he put it? “It looks like sleep, but I know it isn’t. Like a coma, kind of, but not really?”

“Like stasis? Like a tardigrade?” Amir asked, eager despite his earlier objections to Jonesy’s prying. “Like cryptobiosis?”

“Uh,” Cross stared at him. “Sure?”

Amir fisted the air. “Fuck yes! Pay up, Jonesy.” He demanded, but Jonesy had already hung his head and was digging through his backpack for his wallet.

“I can’t believe you two.” Clara said, a little reproachfully.

“You’re a bully.” Jonesy pouted.

“You’re a weenie,” Amir shot back.

Cross watched them bicker for a few minutes, a small smile upon his face that slowly eased into something less contented. He quietly excused himself for the evening, handing each of them a card and instructions to contact him with anything of importance, then he headed back to his hotel, thoughts scrambling around madly beneath his calm demeanor.

These people were not his _friends_. They were his sources, but he could keep them close. He would need them. He’d lied to people before; this was nothing new.

So why did this, of all things, make him feel like _liar_?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i really should be sleeping and i have to work tomorrow but ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯


	8. Chapter 8

_ Something was shaking and cracking the asphalt under his feet with an ungodly screech, bursting through and flailing through the bloody red sky like the slimy tentacle of a Kraken. But there was no water and no ocean, just the concrete jungle and him and his troops and a broken, smoking vehicle— _

_ “Get out of the way!” He screamed, slow, too slow, and the Hydra twisted itself around, rearing back and slamming its colossal weight back onto the ground, rolling its body down like a rope uncurling, and he ran forward, hoping to push him to safety, but instead he only caught a glimpse for a second when corporal Santiago, the new kid, what even was his name— Sam, was crushed beneath it, spraying him with blood. He felt the warmth of it hit his face, stinging his eyes, and it wasn’t the first time he’d lost a soldier, but damn it, this was his first mission! _

_ He hefted the rocket launcher mounted on his arm, bringing it up to bear at the Hydra, only to find it wasn’t there. Neither of his weapons were, and when he looked up, the Hydra was gone too. In its place was Zeus. _

_ Cross was standing on a rooftop now, a syringe hidden in his left hand while he distracted his target with the memories of his past, before lunging forward and plunging it into his shoulder, pushing the poison within through the virus’ body, apathetic to his pitiful cry. Zeus turned to face him, holding himself in pain, but instead of anger and glowing, hungry eyes, it was just Alex, standing there in his nerdy tutor’s attire, looking betrayed and confused. _

_ “What did I do wrong?” He asked, like a hurt child, before the front of his body opened up and there was only teeth and tentacles and hunger— _

Cross jerked, twisting himself around in his sheets and snapping back to reality when his head collided with his nightstand, sending a tacky lamp crashing to the floor. Still flooded with adrenaline, he was on his feet in seconds, trying to remember where he was, trying to find the danger. 

He felt like a moron when he took in his surroundings, a cheap hotel room about twenty minutes away from Alex’s school, ten minutes away from the Mercer household, and five away from the diner. There was cold sweat on the back of his neck as he took in the faded yellow wallpaper, peeling at the corners, and the heavy smell of dust and old linens and cheap detergent and other organic things he’d honestly rather not think about. Even in the dim, fading glow of the lamp’s broken, cooling light bulb, he could see the room around him clearly, could verify for himself that there was nothing there with him, nothing hungry waiting in the gloom. 

He leaned over to pick up the lamp he’d thrown, a little embarrassed even though no one had witnessed his little fit, and caught a glimpse of the overturned alarm clock, hanging from a cord over the edge of the table. 

** 12:14 AM. **

He knew from experience he wouldn’t be able to sleep until he was able to distract himself, haunted as he was by images that didn’t slow him in the least during the daylight hours. Instead, he threw some clothes on and dragged himself out of his room, down the hall, out the door and two blocks up the road, letting his feet guide him in his daze. 

The air helped clear his head a little, but it didn’t stop him from being on edge. At some point in his meandering down the street, he heard a vague shuffling sound to his left. His gut clenched painfully as he spun around, ready to fight, only to see a stray dog picking through some overturned garbage cans in an alley. Nothing worth noting. He kept on for a little while longer, letting the warm, humid night wrap around him like a blanket as he stole occasional glances at stars that he rarely saw in New York. 

Back at their base in Manhattan, on nights like this, he usually just shuffled down to the firing range and put rounds into a paper target until he couldn’t hear anything else anymore. But here, the urge always carried him to the same place. 

When he came back to himself, Cross was pushing through the creaky door of a late-night bar. It was a favorite of his at this point, and the waitstaff knew him by name. 

There was a tiny little Asian woman that hung out there sometimes, wearing a spaghetti strap tank top and tight, ripped jeans, looking like she’d just crawled out of a porn magazine. Cross liked to watch her hustle pool, because she often made about a thousand dollars a night by taking advantage of drunk, slack-jawed college boys. A small smile tugged at his mouth as she cooed syrupy sweet at the five men she’d just cleaned out, leaving them with a disinterested, “rack ‘em up,” when she returned to the bar to get another drink. 

She and Alex would probably get along, one predator to another. 

He sat down in the usual spot, a drink cradled in his hands. He hadn’t even looked to see what he’d ordered, just pointed at something on the list of drafts on tap and tossed a handful of cash on the counter top. He’d sat and watched the condensation cling to the glass, not taking a drink until long after it had gotten too warm to taste like anything good. He finished it listlessly, then asked for something else, and then for another. And another. And another. 

…Just one more. 

He lost count of how many he’d had, and was trying to decide if he should get up and head back when the almost empty bottle was gently removed from his grasp and replaced with a Styrofoam cup of something else, fresh and hot. Cross didn’t look up from it as he heard a stool scrape away from the bar and groan as something inhumanly heavy settled onto it. 

“Hey, Cross.” Said Alex softly, the gentleness cutting through the static in his brain more than aggression ever could. 

“Hey, Alex.” 

* * * 

For all of its faults, New York did have something going for it. 

It was _loud_. Even in the dead of night, there was constant noise. It didn’t bother Dana much, with her dull human hearing, but Alex always heard it, not that it bothered him either. During the brief time in which he’d lived with her back in that little apartment, there was always something to drown out the constant buzz of the hivemind in the back of his head; the sounds of doors slamming, people murmuring in the apartments above and below, the hum of car engines, dogs barking and car alarms, and any number of little things that tended to multiply exponentially in a city of so many people. The hivemind was always there, even against the backdrop of all of that noise, ignorable but constant. 

Even when he’d first moved to Willowbrook, living in his little apartment had been better, surrounded on all sides by neighbors who weren’t often the most considerate. The shuffling of feet, the compounding of a dozen televisions or stereos turned up too loud, none-too-quiet arguments between residents were always noisy enough, and it helped that he didn’t have a whole lot of reasons to spend time there by himself. 

The first night he and Dana spent together in their new house, Alex almost went out of his mind. The hivemind was gone, too distant for even the strange mental connection to traverse, and the house was far enough out of the way of the city center that he was devoid of distraction. The crickets and the wind were just… not enough. He didn’t know how to handle the silence. 

After about five hours of him pacing like a caged animal throughout the house, Dana had burst out of her room – looking frazzled and with a serious case of bedhead—and thrown a pillow at him. 

_"Go. Take. A. Walk! _” She hissed. “You are driving me nuts! Go! Find something to do!” 

And that was that. He’d started going out while his sister slept, when the voices in his head began to shout over the emptiness of the night. He didn’t get tired, and he didn’t have anything else to do to pass the time, though nowadays he’d figured out a pair of headphones and a stack of lesson plans did just fine. 

After a while though, Alex had taken to patrolling. 

He had started making regular rounds around the town, because it wasn’t that large anyway. He made a point to give each of his student’s houses, and his friends, a brief pass once or twice, just to make sure they were safe. If he couldn’t see their thermal signatures through the walls, he would sniff them out, note their location, and check to see that they’d made it to safety sometime later. It eased something primal in him, some part of the virus that insisted on protecting its hive. 

One of the voices in his head delighted in comparing him to a dog she’d had as a child, one that would get up at certain times of night to poke its nose into each of the children’s bedrooms, and would occasionally panic if it found one out of bed. He was forced to agree with her. It was pretty much the same principle, though people tended to like certain things only when dogs did them, and not when Alex did. 

It wasn't quite fair.

After confiding in Dana this new habit, she’d pointed out that it was a little creepy, but mostly she found it sweet. He didn’t feel much drive to stop, after that; there were few forces in his life more powerful than Dana’s approval. 

The scents of the permanent residents crisscrossed and intermingled with the heady viral scent of Captain Cross, a potent and tantalizing sweetness that immediately drew his attention no matter how hungry he was or wasn’t. These past few years, he was always pretty hungry, but there was something about Cross’s particular strain that would always be just a little more tempting than a clean human or even a D-Code. Well, maybe it was more than a little, but Cross didn’t need to know that. 

Alex finished his usual beat, and he’d checked all of the town over three times tonight. And now he came to that part when he tried to decide if he should just go home, or… 

What Cross did at night was none of his business. None. 

Cross was not his to check up on. He wasn’t hive. 

He wouldn’t appreciate Alex stalking him. It would piss him off. 

It was the same argument he had with himself every night, and he always lost, always went anyway. The emptiness of the hivemind was stifling, but lately there would be a bright point within it, like a single star in the blackness of the night sky. Cross felt different than any of the other strains. His song was warped, muted. Something was stifling it. It didn’t have the sheer force of will that the usual Redlight strain did, nor was it the all-consuming dominance of Blacklight, but it was there, shining like a lighthouse against a dark sea of nothing. 

Alex didn’t even think Cross could connect to the hivemind, despite everything. He certainly couldn’t hear the singing, not even when Alex was bearing down on the connection like a hurricane. He was unable to hear it, but he sang all the same. Right now, the song was very unhappy. 

He just couldn’t let this go on. It was getting hard to ignore, and the virus part of his psyche protested it, demanded he stop this, compelled him to protect what little of his kind there was. He just wanted it to stop _screaming._

Something stirred, tried to speak. 

_ Shut up. _He quashed it. He knew She didn’t like it either, but this wasn’t about Her. 

He stopped by the diner, which was always open late into the night, picking up a cup of hot coffee, and then he gave Cross’s hotel a quick pass. It was empty, as he’d expected, so he continued on to the place he already knew that the captain would be. His smell grew heavier in the air the closer he got: virus, Kevlar, cheap ink, spearmint gum, eucalyptus-scented hotel shampoo… 

Now he could taste the fear that laced it. That was what bothered him perhaps the most. 

When Alex finally mustered up the willpower to go inside, the blast of sensations from the interior of the bar almost sent him right back out. Alcohol hung heavy in the air, making his skin tingle and his eyes burn. The music was bass heavy, hellish on his sensitive ears, and the lights were too bright, searing impressions onto his night vision adjusted retinas. He spotted the captain at the far end of the bar, and he looked like hell. He was staring straight ahead at the mirror behind a shelf of liquor bottles like it held the secrets of the universe, or perhaps like it might help him forget those secrets. He was haggard, eyes too bright for the tired, lined face they sat in. His expression was empty. 

Steeling himself, Alex wandered over and slipped the bottle from his grasp with as much care as he could, replacing it with the coffee he’d gotten, which was still pretty hot. Cross didn’t even react to his sudden presence, so he’d either already noticed Alex was there, or he just didn’t care. He didn’t protest as Alex lowered himself onto the stool beside him, relieved to discover that it would take his considerable weight. 

“Hey, Cross.” He said quietly. 

“Hey, Alex,” Cross replied flatly, not looking at him or otherwise moving at all.

Unsure of what to do next, he just sat with him in companionable silence, not asking any questions or making him say anything. After watching a group of drunk frat boys complain about losing all of their money betting on some game, Cross finally glanced up at his face, not entirely meeting his gaze. “Why are you here?” He demanded. “I know you can’t drink, so don’t act like you came here on your own.” 

“I wasn’t going to,” Alex said, automatically on the defensive before he forced himself to take it down a notch. 

“Well, then, spit it out.” Cross snapped, without much energy behind it. The old soldier took a gulp of the hot coffee, tears prickling at the corners of his eyes as it seared his mouth. Alex knew it hardly mattered; his healing factor was almost as impressive as Blacklight, but it was still concerning on a certain level. 

Alex hesitated. “You smelled... weird.” He said finally. 

“What does that even fucking mean, Zeus?” 

He didn’t take offense at the use of his old name, opting instead to stare down at the counter for a second, gathering his thoughts like a man herding cats. On days like this, even just talking could be difficult. Alex would think he was doing just fine, but then whoever he was talking to would get this confused look, and he would realize he had gotten ahead of them both in the conversation. 

Dana had told him that he would skip whole sentences and ideas entirely, jumping between seemingly unrelated subjects before she would stop him and tell him to slow down, to get his shit together into something more coherent. Alex would always hesitate and try to remember how he’d gotten from one thing to another, but it was impossible. Usually, he just moved on to another topic. 

Right now, though, this was important. He made an effort to collect his words together, in English, or so he hoped. 

“Sometimes I go out at night and check on the town, just to make sure nothing’s… I don’t know, I think it’s got something to do with the hive instincts. I just like to know where everyone is. I can usually pick up people’s scents from the outside, and I can see their body heat through walls too.” He tried to explain. 

“So you’re a creepy weirdo. So what?” He said, his voice rough and bitter. 

“You usually pick hotels outside of my usual rounds, but… it’s just, you weren’t in your hotel, and the smell you left behind had…” Alex, suddenly unsure of himself, cleared his throat. 

“Out with it.” 

“You were afraid,” he said simply, and it was getting a little hard stay where he was. This was too important to cut short, but the sensory assault was beginning to make him antsy, and Cross was warm and very, very close. “You smelled afraid, okay? There’s fear on you, and it’s always been something about people that I can’t help but notice, because it comes with the whole predator thing. But you’re _Robert Cross, _and you’re not afraid of anything. Not even me. So, I just… I guess I just wanted to make sure…” He trailed off, helplessly. 

“You were _worried_ about me?” Cross was staring at him, his jaw hanging open a little. “You were _stalking_ me. I don’t know whether to be creeped out or touched.” He admitted. 

Alex was a little embarrassed now, so he just shrugged, fiddling with the salt shaker on the counter. Cross stared at him for a solid five minutes before waving over the bartender. He ordered something else, apparently unaware of the way the virus in him had been shrieking in protest for the past two hours. 

Somewhere in the back of his mind, She cried out as well. 

Alex couldn’t take it anymore. As Cross brought the next drink to his lips, he winced, reaching out with the delicacy of a person disarming a landmine and plucking the bottle from his hand before he could take more than one mouthful of it. 

“Don’t do that,” Alex pleaded, trying to pretend he couldn’t feel the warmth of the captain’s skin on the glass. 

Cross didn’t take that well at all. “Who the fuck do you think you are?” He grunted, and his arm shot out, clumsily, attempting to snag back his drink. 

Alex pulled it farther out of reach, already not liking where this was going, and Cross leaned forward, still trying to get it back. He was close enough now that Alex picked up that sweet smell, the one that made his head spin with hunger and his biomass churn with desperation. He didn’t know what it was, but that didn’t stop it from literally getting under his skin. 

“Cross, please,” Alex requested tightly. “The virus doesn’t like it.” 

He was just so _hungry._

* * * 

“The virus doesn’t like it.” Alex told him, going taut, his throat working visibly. He was staring firmly in another direction, seemingly no longer aware of the game of keep away that he had been playing moments ago. 

Cross blinked, going still when he noticed the position he’d just put them both in. He still had his arm out, reaching for the bottle, his body leaned across Alex’s and pressed far too close against him. He couldn’t help the jolt of adrenaline that came as his fight-or-flight response finally caught up to his drunk, addled brain, and he knew it did neither of them any good. If the way Alex tensed further and his nose twitched was any indication, he definitely noticed it too. Cross forced his heart to slow and leaned back carefully, out of his personal space. He gave him a few minutes to uncoil, and used the time to think. 

Alex had worried enough about him to come check on him in the middle of the night. He couldn’t remember the last time anyone had given that much of a shit about him. 

Maybe that made_ Cross _the problem. Alex was the one sitting next to him, keeping him company after a nightmare like a friend would, steadfastly protecting a town full of people that he should consider disposable snacks but that he watched over and guarded like a beloved family dog. And the expression on his face a moment ago, when he’d stopped him from drinking; Cross would eat his shoes if he didn’t look _concerned._

Alex was the man-eating nightmare, but Cross honestly didn’t know which of them was worse anymore. His stomach lurched a little and his mouth watered with nausea. He still felt anxious, but the tightness in his gut had been replaced with a friend just as familiar. 

_ Guilt._

“What do you mean, the virus doesn’t like it?” Cross asked finally, just to stop his brain from following that line of thinking any further. 

“I can feel it when you do this, even all the way across town. Did you think you could just flood your system with a toxic antiseptic and the virus wouldn’t mind?” 

Cross was in no place to deal with this, but demanded anyway, “Are you saying I’m… linked to you? Like that?” He didn’t try to keep the disgust out of his voice. The feeling had vanished before he’d even finished his sentence, but from Alex’s face, the harm had already been done. 

“Relax,” Alex said dourly, curling in on himself a little. “I can’t do anything to or with your strain, so don’t worry. I can just hear it sing, if I listen.” 

Cross just gaped at him. _Singing _had never been the way Alex had described it before, and that made it seem almost… wistful. Maybe he missed living in the Red Zones. If one body’s worth of repressed, dissected virus was singing, then Manhattan must have been a deafening chorus at its peak. 

Maybe to him, it was beautiful. 

“That’s a good way to describe it.” Alex replied, and it took him an embarrassing amount of time to realize that he’d been musing aloud. “Not in a way that I could explain with words, though. It _was_ like a choir, one that you feel more than you hear.” 

“Does Blacklight sing?” Cross asked awkwardly. 

“Yes..." He grimaced, "...and no. Back in Manhattan I could feel the empty space where my part should be, and not singing it wasn’t easy, especially when Greene was still… conducting, I guess, to extend the metaphor. I made up my own tune, and it was so dissonant with what everyone else was doing that tapping into the hivemind was borderline painful.” He said with a frown, as though only just now realizing that that was the word to describe what he felt. 

“Does it still bother you?” Cross couldn’t help but wonder. 

Alex didn’t answer for a while, and Cross thought he wasn’t going to until he said, quietly, “I guess it still hurts. But out here, against the silence, it’s easier. It still isn’t the song Blacklight wants to sing, but that’s tough shit.” Alex glanced at him, looking away quickly. “Must be nice, though. To have all the benefits and none of the drawbacks. No hunger. No hivemind. No memories that aren’t yours. Any time you wanna trade places, let me know.” 

“I’m tired of this place, let’s go.” Cross said suddenly, fishing around for some cash to leave as a tip. 

Alex looked relieved. “Yeah. Sure, I'll walk you back to your hotel.” 

“No, I... I’ll see you tomorrow, like normal.” He stopped, thoughtful. “Thanks for the coffee.” 

* * * 

Alex was kind of like a cat, in a way. There were things about his body language that meant one thing to him and entirely different things to everyone else. Zeus wasn’t human, and before when Cross had worked with him, he hadn’t had much reason to act like one, unless he was breaking into one of Blackwatch’s bunkers to make a mess. It had been difficult to get a read on him sometimes, if one was looking for an emotion that wasn’t social discomfort or anger. 

Cross had at first assumed that at least some of his human expressions were a performance, and he wondered exactly how much focus Alex spent on just that part of his disguise. His natural inclinations were too alien to pass as human behavior, given that his body was mostly just a pile of viscous viral sludge that by all rights should have felt no need to express itself anyway. 

Then there were things that Cross wouldn't have expected to come naturally to Alex that _did, _and it shouldn't have surprised him, but Alex had a lot more human inclination than Cross had originally given him credit for. The conflict made it hard for him to figure out what Alex was thinking, but it had gotten a lot easier once Cross had stopped looking for animal reactions and started noticing the _human _ones.

That was why it had taken him a while to figure out that some days, not very often but often enough, Alex just couldn’t handle being around more than one or two people at a time. Some days, he couldn’t take crowds or public spaces at all. He would show up, and his eyes would flicker around, and he would twitch and tense up at every little sound. His body would shift to follow the scent of everyone and everything that caught his attention. Cross once told him that he looked like a beagle on cocaine, to which Alex had dryly replied that this was exactly how it felt. 

The warning signs had been there the previous night, at the bar, so Cross had figured today would be one of those days, and it was. Instead of trying to keep Alex in a seat when he was acting like a first-grader named Ritalin, Cross suggested that they wander around the college for a bit, since the holiday weekend had strangled the crowds from a river to a steady trickle. 

It wasn’t like he was any more comfortable with stillness than Alex was, anyway. 

They walked in silence for a long time, making a few laps around the campus and watching the sky get dark. The street lights kicked on with a quiet electrical hum and began drawing moths and beetles in droves. 

Every so often, Cross would stop and examine the plants on the campus whose names he had forgotten from his very early childhood years, when his foster mother had been a florist. Alex knew all of them, of course, and began naming them without prompting after a while. Cross would repeat them, a little wistfully, solidifying them in his memory. It was nice to have familiar words in his mouth again. It had been… fuck, almost fifty years now since she’d passed. 

He felt old. 

Alex had told him once, a long time ago, that he liked the plants, especially the student-tended gardens around campus. He thought it was nice to be around life that he didn’t feel compelled by his instincts to destroy. It was why green was his favorite color. 

Surrounded by tall, modern buildings, walking beside a hooded Zeus, he felt strangely at home. The warm summer mist gathered on his nose and on his tongue when he breathed. It was refreshing, given the hellish hangover he’d woken up with this morning. 

“So, I guess you’ve been meeting with some of my students?” Alex watched him from beneath his hood. “You smell like them all the time.” 

He had indeed had breakfast with Clara and the others, though it wasn’t like he had planned it. They had a habit of ambushing him whenever he was in town. He would never admit it, but he had gone out to eat more often in the past few months than he had in the past ten years combined, if only so that they would come find him. 

“Yeah, I met Amir and Jonesy.” 

Alex nodded. He had his hands stuffed in his pockets, as usual. He never seemed to know what to do with them otherwise. 

“Are they an item? I thought they might be, but I didn’t want to ask and look like an asshole by assuming either way.” Cross admitted. 

“No, thank god.” Alex said. “I can’t stand watching humans hang off each other all the time, put their mouths on each other’s faces.” He wrinkled his nose. “It’s gross. You have no idea how much bacteria is in the human mouth.” 

Cross didn’t have to ask for clarification; he knew that Alex was more disgusted with sex in general than with the fact that they were both men. Alex barely made the distinction, considering things like gender and sexuality as just a weird social construct more than anything really important, and honestly, that was one thing Alex was actually right about. It was probably one of the reasons Clara had taken to him like she had, now that he thought about it, seeing as how gender studies was her area. 

Cross realized he knew both Alex’s favorite color, and his opinion on gender studies. He knew far too much about the man. 

“They just seemed pretty close, and they’re an odd pair. And they gossip like women.” 

“That’s a little ignorant, Cross.” Alex had a small smile on his face even as he reprimanded him. 

“I just meant that women are different with their friends than men are.” Cross backtracked, half laughing. “They’re touchy-feely. If I went by that alone, they’re all doing it with each other, all the time.” 

Alex opened his mouth, then closed it. 

“Don’t do that, man, that’s not something I need to know. I’m old, I can’t be thinking about that shit without feeling like a pervert.” 

“I didn’t say anything.” 

“You didn’t have to!” 

Alex’s frazzled nerves clearly did not appreciate his raised voice, but he didn’t comment. He seemed to be mulling it over. “You’re right,” he finally concluded, “Women are usually more comfortable sharing things with each other.” 

“Hmmm.” 

“Dana is like that,” He continued, “with _ everyone._ Do you ever wonder what it’s like to be just… vulnerable to everyone like that? Exposed? I mean, I have a few friends, and that’s more than something like me could ever ask for. But Dana has _lots_ friends, especially other women, and they’re so unguarded. It must be so… freeing.” 

“What, to be unguarded?” 

“To have nothing to hide,” Said Alex somberly, pulling Cross up short. “I’m… I bet that’s what it’s like to have a hive.” He looked intensely uncomfortable, and Cross blinked, sobering at his tone. “What I mean to say is, I think for me… that’s you. I mean, you know things, about me.” 

“Sure,” chuckled Cross, trying to lighten his mood a little, “but I don’t know how to braid hair.” 

“No,” Alex huffed a laugh in that weird way that he did. “The… the other thing.” 

“So, what, I’m not a girl, but I’m your hive?” He almost said, _ is that supposed to make me feel better? _But caught himself just in time. It’d only provoke him, and he wasn’t going to do that in public if he could avoid it. 

And if he was honest with himself, there was a part of him that was kind of…_ pleased._

When Alex frowned, searching for words or perhaps shoving aside other people’s memories to get to what _he _actually thought, Cross brought him back around. 

“What are you trying to say?” He asked, to give him something to pull himself out with. 

Alex either dodged his first question, or lost the thread of the conversation. “Dana says I should try to talk more about this kind of shit, so don’t laugh, alright?” 

“Yeah, alright.” Cross replied like a man stepping over a tripwire. 

“Okay, I’m not really, you know, vulnerable to much,” he gave a humorless smile that slid from his face a few seconds after. “Not much can hurt me physically, and the things that can, only a few people know about. But_ you _know.” He turned his head toward, and then away from him. “Things like that. That I can’t handle cold, and that Blacktox makes me sleepy. That I shut down if I take enough damage. That I can’t keep up higher brain function if I get too small or compress too densely. And the other shit, too, since you know everyone I care about, now. You know where my sister sleeps.” 

Cross had caught the thing about the Blacktox already, but some of this he genuinely hadn’t known. Now that he thought about it, he should have. They’d worked together for long enough during the initial outbreak, hadn’t they? And the_ cold_! That should have been obvious. He wanted to smack himself. 

This was information,_ useful _information, and strangely Cross wished he’d never heard it. This felt wrong, all of a sudden. He wanted to end this conversation and just go _think _for a second. 

“I mean… I think that…” Alex struggled for a moment, oblivious to the Captain’s deep desire for him to just _stop talking._ “I think… that you… could destroy me,” Alex said finally, grasping for the words like a malfunctioning arcade claw machine. “I think you could kill me. Don’t tell me you’ve never thought about it, fantasized even. I’m sure at this point, you’ve figured out how. And I… I don’t think I would stop you, if you did. I think I would trust that you would know if it was something that had to be done. I mean, if it was you doing it.” 

Cross was completely poleaxed, his whole world falling around him, or maybe he was the one free falling. Because he _ had _ been planning it, even if he hadn’t been certain how. But to have that kind of trust from someone like Alex, that was beyond his ability to describe. All of his trains of thought halted in the station, travel suspended until further notice. Something big was blocking the tracks, and he couldn’t get past it unless he went through it. 

What had he even done to_ earn _that from him? Cross was a _liar_, and he was lying to him right now in all of the worst ways. He didn’t even know…

He forced the thought away, irrationally afraid that Alex would somehow pick it from his brain. 

They kept walking, Alex looking increasingly apprehensive as Cross processed what he’d been told. “Can I ask you something?” Cross said finally, fingering a loose thread on his sleeve. “Just between us girls?” 

Alex actually smiled, looking relieved. “Sure, just between us girls.” 

“Do you ever…” He didn’t know how to phrase this so as not to piss him off. “Why didn’t you do what Greene did?” He blurted anyway, like an ass. 

Alex came to a halt at a small crossroads, the distant pulse of bass from a party a few blocks down the street the only sound, and he was lit from above by the yellow fluorescents that bathed them. His face was in shadow beneath his hood; Cross couldn’t see the expression on his face, only the gleam of his irises in the darkness, little twinkling stars. 

_ “What was that?” _

Cross could tell it was less of a question and more of Alex giving him an opportunity to take it back. He wanted to take it back, wanted to preserve this air of calm peace that had settled between them, but he couldn’t. 

“I mean, you know. Make hives. Infect people? Like… Like your sister,” he continued, in spite of the feeling in his gut telling him to _shut his stupid mouth_, “your sister’s human. Someday she’ll get old, and if you infected her too, you’d never have to worry about losing her, or protecting her, right? So why don’t you?” 

He was met with only a frosty silence. 

“I’m not trying to—” he lowered the hands that he’d raised automatically, defensively. “You mentioned last night in passing that you did have hive-oriented instincts, and again just now.” He wanted to move again, but forced himself to confront this. He needed his answer, no more dancing around it, no more games. “You compared it to a song that you wanted to join in. Does the silence bother you? Do you ever feel driven to, you know, make a hive for real? To … you know, sing that part? Or maybe write the music?” 

Alex kept staring at him unreadably. 

“It’s just, I have to wonder if Greene was the kind of person who would have done what she did, before she got infected. I wondered if there was something in the virus, some kind of—” he waved a hand, “—programming involved with it, that made her want to infect and build hives. Maybe she didn’t see it the way we did. Maybe she couldn’t see things as they actually were, could only_ hear _that chorus. Maybe she couldn’t have stopped herself, even if she wanted to.” 

He felt himself digging deeper into a hole with every word, but he had to get this out, had to know for sure if his course of action was damning. He had to be certain he was doing this for a reason, for the rightreason. Because for once, he had some information that might work, a vulnerability, but Alex had shared it with him _willingly_. To use something like that against him, after that declaration of trust, it had to be for something real. 

Alex lingered for a moment longer, then simply began walking again. 

“Alex?” 

He didn’t make any indication that he had heard, so Cross scrambled to catch up, returning to his previous position at Alex’s side, with a few more feet of distance between them now. His pace was just a hair too fast to be comfortable. What Cross could see of his face under his hood had blanked entirely, like it did sometimes when he was upset and lost in thought. 

He knew he had been crossing a line somewhere, he just didn’t know exactly where it had been. After sharing everything else so easily, maybe Cross had taken a few too many liberties. He probably shouldn’t have mentioned Dana. 

“Alex,” Cross said, stopping again, reaching out to stop him as well before pulling back at just the last second. Alex stopped too, though, his mouth drawn into a thin white line. “Look, I don’t try to rile you up on purpose.” 

Without any inflection, Alex just replied, “Fuck you.” 

They shared a tense silence before Alex shook his head incredulously. “I just thought maybe we were past this, Cross. Is that really what you think of me?” And he almost looked…_ hurt_. “That I’m just some ticking time bomb with no free will, just waiting to—” 

“I just— I mean,” Cross tried to explain. “I was just curious. I know that sitting still, this weird peace, it must be hard on the parts of the virus that want you to be more, uh, active. Like back in Manhattan.” 

“Is this still me you’re talking about?” Alex said shrewdly, face still impassive. 

Cross ignored the jab, focused his new lead. He would pull this thread, and there was only so long he could do that before the whole thing unraveled. “But compared to this, the violence, the singing, it had to feel pretty good.” 

“Cross,” Alex said warningly. 

“I mean, this isn’t what you were made for. Why are you even—” 

“_C__ross.” _Alex said louder. 

“Don’t you miss it?” Cross asked before he could stop himself. 

_"Of fucking _course _I do!” _ Alex shoved his hood back, snarling, stomping forward, “I _do_, alright? I’m not a real person! Is that what you wanted me to admit so fucking badly?!” 

His eyes blazed with frustration, exhaustion, _wr__ath__, _and suddenly Cross realized that he’d never seen Alex’s genuine anger, not really. Irritation, anxiety, lashing out when backed into a corner, maybe. But this… 

This was_ rage. _

Suddenly, Cross was _afraid _of him, genuinely afraid, for the first time in a long, long time. It hit him that he was completely alone with _Zeus, _no weapons, no Wisemen, no faceless military grunts to throw in his path. Cross was entirely at his mercy. In comparison, he was nothing. He was small and isolated, like a diver at the bottom of the ocean, floating helplessly before the massive, unblinking eye of a deep-sea leviathan, too big and ancient and powerful for a tiny human mind to fully comprehend. 

He was backing up unconsciously as Alex advanced on him, hot breath on his face, his features twisted with fury. He could feel his anger like a physical, tangible thing thrumming between them, low but roaring with intensity. Something about it was all consuming, _dominating. _

“You think I don’t know what I am? You think I can go even five fucking seconds without having to make some kind of accommodations for it?” 

“Alex...” Cross whispered, absolutely and unfathomably terrified. 

“Do you think I’ve forgotten? You think I don’t remember how it_ felt,” _he hissed, biomass rippling in the dark, little wiggling tendrils emerging and submerging agitatedly, “to pull someone in, to pull them apart and break them down and make myself whole? To feel that _relief _doing exactly what I was created to do? How warm that fresh blood is when I tear through bones and tendons and— and— Of course I miss it. I think about it _every s__ingle __day._ How small all of this is, how fragile, how _e__asy _it would be to tear it all down and make it _mine—" _He broke off, visibly fighting himself, gritting his teeth. 

“_Alex_,” Cross tried again, but his voice came out a rasp. Something about Alex's expression had launched  him right past the land of terror and into the unknown territory leagues beyond it. 

“I know that I was made for a _purpose, _alright? That I was made as a tool to be used, just like every other fucking weapon humans created to pointlessly slaughter each other. I mean, it’d be like if the rifle in your hands just turned around one day when you pulled the trigger and said, _oh, sorry, I want to be a can opener instead!” _He shouted, sending the birds in nearby trees scattering. “That’s how you Blackwatch fuckers see me, isn’t it? Just a _device _getting ideas above its station. It’s fine for _you _to be what you are, as long as you’re a good and obedient little weapon, right?! I just— I thought I was allowed to _choose _to be something else! Why is that so fucking hard to accept?! Why does everyone get a choice but _me!?” _

Cross felt his heart thundering in his ears, the white heat of adrenaline in churning through his guts and lightening his limbs, insisting that they run and freeze and attack all at once. The conflicting impulses nailed him to the ground, unable to do anything at all, like a deer, like_ prey._

Alex took another step forward, and Cross flinched away violently.

Out of nowhere, whatever it was that had taken Alex for a moment, he seemed to come down from it, hard. His eyes cleared, widened, and he drew back as though he’d been struck. “Cross?"

The energy that had been hanging between them fizzled out, silent. 

Cross took another step back, unable to stop the racing of his heart, unable to breathe or do anything but listen to the frantic cacophony of chemicals that screamed in his body. 

“I’m— Cross, I didn’t—” Alex pulled his hood up, turning away, but not before Cross caught the devastated expression on his face. He was shaking. “Sorry, I’m sorry, I didn’t— I_ wouldn’t _— I’m sorry.” He slipped away into the darkness, leaving Cross alone. 

Cross sagged to his knees, not feeling safe or relieved. 

Not feeling anything at all. 


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oh no

The door slammed open, groaning on its hinges as Cross pushed his way through it, a neat stack of files in one hand. He tossed them carelessly across the General’s desk.

“Cold. Blacktox.” He bit out.

The General, who was halfway to his feet, settled back into a padded black leather chair with exasperation. “And just what the hell makes you think this kind of behavior is acceptable, captain?”

Cross noticed, a hair too late, the small group of women who had been standing by the door. They all wore lab coats, some with safety glasses perched atop their heads or on their faces.

The team lead was at the forefront, a woman of perhaps forty, her unnaturally bright purple hair pulled into a tight ponytail at the base of her skull. She was lowering her hands, likely an interrupted mindless gesture to articulate a point that had halted midsentence halfway through a conversation with General McIntyre. She had whipped around to face him when he’d burst in like the hounds of hell were at his heels, and now she was glaring at him.

Cross barely registered this before his attention was back on the General. “Cold and Blacktox, simultaneously.” He reiterated. “If anything will do it, that will. Blacktox doesn’t work on him like it does on Redlight, or how Bloodtox does normally, but it works as a _sedative_, and so does the cold.”

He ignored the women completely, the scientists who might not have the clearance to hear this conversation, but Cross didn’t care. He wanted his crime to be known, because he didn’t know how he was going to live with it by himself.

“You’re sure of this?” The General said, casting a glance to the purple-haired woman, who thought for a moment, putting together what the conversation was actually about, before nodding assuredly.

“As sure as anything can be.” Cross answered. “Burn off some biomass, dose him with Blacktox, and blast him with the coldest temperatures you can. Freeze him solid, if you have to.” He tried not to wince at the thought, and didn't mention that electrocuting the ever-loving shit out of him would probably boost their chances. He wasn't particularly inclined to make this any more painful for Alex than it had to be. “That’ll bring him down. Not dead, but incapacitated, no question.” He leafed through the scattered pages and removed one, handing it over for his inspection. “This is the file I’ve been working on for the past year. I’ve compiled a list of people important to him, locations he frequents.”

Cross hated to risk the lives of Dana or those poor kids, but if what the General said was true, there could be much worse than Blackwatch coming for them very soon.

He couldn’t even be angry with Zeus anymore for the deaths of his first Wisemen. He wanted to be, because it would be much easier. Hate felt lightyears better than whatever the fuck he was feeling now, but Cross had had almost four years to think about it, and he hadn’t been able to think about much else during their interactions.

Cross knew that he hadn’t given Alex a choice. Alex hadn’t shown up at that hive specifically to wreak havoc; he’d been tricked into thinking he could be cured, because he hadn’t even known yet that he was too far away from human to have any hope of being put back together. Alex had shown up hopefully, trusting a woman he’d been told he loved, thinking that he might be taking the next step toward his return to humanity. Instead, he was ambushed and forced into a corner, fight or die.

Cross just wished to god he could forget it. He just wanted to forget the _red_—

_— and black moving fast, too fast! He had to stay on his toes, give in to the dance, the rhythm of attack, counter-attack, hit, parry, dodge, _run!_ Ringing in his ears as a massive blade dug into the concrete, humming like a tuning fork when it came free. The virus in his blood was alive, it was shrieking like a wild animal, pushing him further, faster, go, go, go! _

_He bounded over the corpse of one of the Wisemen with alacrity, their arms and legs and neck twisted at angles that human limbs simply were not capable of. He couldn’t tell who it was, the once solid structure of the body now merely a bag of pulverized bones and meat._

_There were more infected now, and there was a moist, shiny red and blood all over the walls, viral matting soft and yielding beneath his feet like sand. Then a thick, ropy tentacle snapped through the air like a whip, spearing another of his men through the shoulder, he thought it was Davis, but it was so fast he couldn’t even be sure who he was about to lose, and then it was pulling her in with screams that turned to gurgles and the grinding of bone, and oh god that red was **everywhere**—_

“You still with me, Cross?”

He started. “Yes, sir. Sorry, sir.”

That was the past. It was done.

But it had still happened. Maybe none of this was on Alex’s shoulders, or maybe all of it was. He didn’t have to like it. It didn’t have to feel good, or even right. What Cross had to do wasn’t fair, but it was necessary. He just had to tell himself that, over and over again. Maybe eventually, it would stick. He had to hold the Red Line.

His vision narrowed to a tunnel for a second, and he reminded himself to breathe.

“Well, then,” McIntyre sounded pleased now. “Don’t do anything differently than you have been. If you break routine, Zeus will get suspicious. Understood? Excellent. You’re dismissed. Ms. Jury, get to work. See if you can retrofit the design of your current prototype to meet these requirements.”

“Of course, sir.” The scientist nodded, and her eyes were bright.

“Go, get started.” McIntyre said to the woman, who shot off like a rocket to follow the command.

Cross trailed after the scientists, not looking at them. He didn’t want to talk, to think. On his way out, he spotted Vasquez lingering in the hall, a thoughtful expression on his face.

* * *

“Almost thought you wouldn’t show,” Alex said, eyes downcast. For once, he had shown up early and was waiting when Cross arrived. He poked at his phone as though he wasn’t really looking at it, ignoring a bowl of cold, congealed rice on the table. “Thought maybe you finally decided you had better things to do than fly down to a sleepy nowhere town to have lunch with a disease.”

Their last disastrous interaction hung between them like a cloud of Bloodtox.

_If he tossed his stun baton at him, it might buy a few seconds, and he could run, but he didn’t have anything else on him that would do any real damage, and Mercer had always been faster than him—_

He shook himself out of that.

“You can’t get rid of me that easy, you big dumb bag of spaghetti.” Cross sniped instead, dropping into a faded and worn leather booth. There was a strange unspoken agreement between them to ignore the way his voice trembled, how his hands shook, how sweat gathered at the base of his neck.

Alex kept looking down. “No sign of any runner, as usual, if it was ever here in the first place. I’m being a good virus too, I promise. Why do we keep doing this? I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know.” He sniffed. “Where’s your pepper spray?”

“Don’t be an asshole, Zeus.” Cross spit out reflexively, ignoring the way his heart jumped at the word _runner_. He forced himself to relax. “What did you order?” Cross tried, because interrogating him was always easier than letting him sit there and be moody. “I get that eating helps you blend in, but I’ve always thought that maybe, given your particular tastes, you’d go for meat instead.”

Alex tapped his foot, a thoughtful and apprehensive look on his face. “It’s… not easy to hear.”

“What, you think I’m squeamish?” Cross said after ordering a hard drink. “I’ve been in an active war zone with a sentient flesh amalgam for the past four years, you can’t yuck me out.”

“It’s not that it’s gross, it’s—I mean, it _is, _I guess, to you, but...” Alex dropped his phone loudly. “Can’t you figure this out on your own? Have you seriously never given it any thought? You’ve seen how I really eat, right?”

Cross tried to distance himself from the anxiety that squeezed the air from his lungs, and failed.

“Of course I have,” he said darkly after a long and ringing silence. His hands were starting to shake a little again, and he hadn’t noticed that they’d stopped in the first place.

“Right, yeah.” Alex muttered. Cross only realized he’d switched back to his old leather jacket when he pushed his hood down and ran a hand through his dark hair. “Up close and personal. I didn’t forget.” The tone of his voice was weird.

This was a topic that he usually tried to steer clear from anyway, since the discomfort that followed every mention of it was amplified in an echo chamber of _he ate my entire team _and _he almost ate me_, but something about the way Alex responded waved away the fear like a puff of smoke. Normally, Alex got angry and defensive when he brought it up. He would throw the blame right back at Cross, couldn’t stand to let it sit on his own shoulders.

But now? Alex looked afraid. Regretful. _Ashamed_.

Cross was hit with a realization like a grenade to the face.

This whole ordeal was… it was a fucking tragedy. This was the scary, man-eating beast, Frankenstein’s monster, trying to move on and just live, to take back the chance at a normal existence that was stolen from him by his creator.

No matter how hard he tried, it didn’t matter, because he had to die, if only so others could live.

Zeus had been something awful once. The embodiment of humanity’s capacity for wanton violence, the Blacklight virus, the culmination of humanity’s worst sins, born in the middle of a war and forced to follow the rules of war during the first few chaotic weeks of his life. But right now, the thing in front of him was not Zeus, but Alex. Not a weapon, but a person.

A person he’d just betrayed in the worst way possible.

He wanted to puke, and he forced himself to reason through this, to cut through the emotional barrier with logic. As much as Alex might have wanted to just live a human life, as unfair as it maybe was, McIntyre was right. He was unstable, and the snap was coming. So Cross took his regret and balled it up deep inside, stuffing it way down. He couldn’t dwell on it, not with everything hanging by the tenuous thread of Alex’s sanity.

Cross was pulled out of introspection when Alex spoke again, not meeting his eyes. “Are you really alright? Your heart rate just shot up for a second there.”

He looked so lost, and it was times like these it hit the hardest that Alex was so very _young_.

Their waiter set a drink down as he passed. “Your Manhattan, sir.”

Cross nodded in thanks, taking a second to let the smell of good bourbon and strong alcohol wash over him. He had brought it almost all the way up to his mouth before he caught the way Alex’s shoulders had hitched up as though he were bracing himself for a blow. After a few seconds, Cross sighed and put it back down without taking a sip.

“I’ve got to face this sometime or I’ll spend the rest of my life knowing I never got past it.” He told Alex resignedly. “It’s okay. I want to hear you explain it, in your words. If you want.”

“Alright,” Alex said hesitantly. “Let me figure out how I’m going to explain this, because it’s kind of weird.”

“I’ve got nowhere to be.”

“Alright. Okay. You know when I… when I consume someone, I pull in everything right along with them. Clothes, jewelry, body armor, whatever.”

Yes, he did. Cross knew very well. He tried to cling to that, to dredge up a familiar horror and fear, because thinking about Alex in any other way right now was doing something awful to his stomach. “I have always wondered; what happens to the rest of it? Don’t you only need living cells to convert into virus, or something?”

“Well, yeah,” replied Alex hesitantly. He still looked nervous. “So… so I break down all of the, uh, human parts into organic components, and then convert them to, well, more of me. Like a normal virus does, but really, _really _fast. It’s insanely complicated, and it makes me wonder how the original Mercer managed to make this thing. I don’t think even he knew what he was doing, not entirely.”

Cross didn’t feel like thinking about him right now, since it only emphasized the differences between Dr. Alexander Mercer and Alex Mendel. “So then what happens?”

“Well, now I’ve got all of this new biomass to compress down into a person shape, but there’s also a lot of inorganic matter left over, which usually just gets melted down right along with the good stuff and mixed in with my, uh… Alright, fuck, maybe there’s not really a non-gross way to— What are you laughing at?”

Cross couldn’t really find anything funny right now, but the reaction was knee-jerk. “Sure, let’s pass this part,” he masked a grimace beneath a snort of amusement. “You eat stuff and you don’t eat stuff. Do you hang on to _all _of the inorganic shit you pull in until someone blasts it off of you with a tank?”

“Kinda,” Alex made a little _so-so _gesture. “You know how owls eat mice whole and then spit out all the fur and bones and stuff they can’t digest?”

“That’s disgusting, please stop talking about that and get on with your point.”

“I’m getting there, but you keep interrupting me.” Alex said impatiently. “So the virus doesn’t bother with any of that stuff. It doesn’t feel like food, and it doesn’t try to metabolize it like food, so I can pull in and break down pretty much anything I want, though there isn’t much point, if I can’t make more of myself out of it. But the closer what I’m eating gets to once having been a part of something red-blooded, like meat, sometimes eggs or milk, the more likely the virus is to try to react to it without my say so, especially if I’m already hungry. It might try to start to process it like it does human cells, whether it’s alive or human or not, and it’ll try to integrate it into my biomass.” He shook his head helplessly, frustratedly. “Blacklight wasn’t made to process non-human biological material anyway, but trying to reproduce the virus in dead biomatter is even worse.”

Cross wished he’d stop telling him his weaknesses for _five goddamn seconds._

“That won’t stop it from trying, though, and it wakes up all those consuming processes too. It’s uncomfortable, but also…”

“It’s just enough to make you hungry, but it doesn’t actually do anything to sate it?” Cross figured it out. “It’s like Pavlov’s dog and the bell, right? You drool even if there’s nothing to eat in front of you?”

Alex looked grateful that Cross managed to find something closer to mammalian behavior to relate it to. “Yeah, pretty much.”

“I can see why that would be an inconvenience when out to lunch with work friends. Tentacles tend to bring down the mood.”

Alex decidedly ignored the “tentacle” comment to avoid an old argument. Instead, he glanced at his phone when it lit up on the table, momentarily distracted. “Anyway, when I need to eat to blend in, I stick with non-animal related foods, and it seems to do the trick. It’s a common enough diet around colleges anyway.”

He swiped it open to respond to an email from one of his students when a strange, choked sound brought his focus sharply back around to Cross, alarmed.

The captain’s face was red and covered by his hands. He was shaking silently.

“Shit, did I freak you out? Hey! _Hey_! What, are you choking? _Cross!”_ He rose from his seat, his hands hanging uselessly in the air, because Alex was very good at breaking people, and not so good at fixing them.

Cross moved his hands away from his face before Alex could panic, so that he would see how he was only laughing at him again, only this time so hard he almost lost the ability to breathe entirely. He wiped a tear from his eye, gasping for breath.

“Fucking hell, Cross! You scared the shit out of me!” That, like so many things that passed between them, floated in the air awkwardly for a moment before both men decided unanimously and wordlessly not to touch it with a ten-foot pole.

It didn’t matter though, because it actually made Cross laugh harder after a second. When he finally got control of himself again, running a hand over his face with little chuckles escaping him as he took a drink of water, Cross said, “Holy hell, I probably haven’t laughed like that since I was twelve.”

“What’s so fucking funny, you prick?” Alex glared at him.

Cross clapped a hand over his mouth to huff out, “the great Zeus, Monster of Manhattan, devourer of armies and man-eating security nightmare is sitting at the table across from me and he just told me he’s a _vegan_.”

“I will throw this whole restaurant at you, Cross, I fucking swear to—“ And then he glanced down at his phone, which had lit up in a silent alert, and he startled, reaching for it with fumbling hands before he answered it.

“Dana?... Oh, shit, I’m sorry, I didn’t think he’d… I know, I know. I’ll make it up to you when I get….” He palmed his face. “Okay, see you at home.” He hung up.

“What was that about?” Cross asked.

“Uh… my sister had something she wanted to talk to me about. She had a date with someone, I think someone she really liked, and she cancelled it because she thought I’d be home. I completely forgot about it after you got here. I… didn’t think you’d come.” He looked upset, and he’d always been such an open fucking book, hadn’t he?

“What?” Cross felt his stomach churn with guilt.

“I just feel bad,” he admitted. “She doesn’t get to have much of a life because she’s always worrying about me. I’m as indestructible as a thing gets, and she sits around and _frets _about me. It’s ridiculous. She _never _goes on dates.”

“Huh.” It was a thought, though, wasn’t it? Dana seeing someone, maybe getting married and having a normal life.

Alex would never begrudge her that, if she really chose it for herself. Cross knew that for certain. But he had to wonder what he would do without her. With a spouse, maybe children, Dana just wouldn’t have the time for Alex anymore, not like she does now. It’s not like Alex could start a family of his own, either. Well, he _could_, but it would be potentially apocalyptic, so he didn’t entertain the idea at all. But it would leave him with far too much time stuck in his own head. That could be a problem, in the long-term.

Then he realized that in less than two weeks, it wouldn’t matter anymore.

“What’s wrong?” Alex asked him.

“Nothing,” Cross answered quietly. “Bit of a headache, is all.” That, at least, was the truth.

“Your heart rate just spiked again.” The virus told him. “And you smell like adrenaline.”

The Captain pulled a face at him. “Would you not monitor my vitals for a second? It’s an invasion of privacy.”

“I can’t _not _do it.” Alex looked around, as though hoping the source of Cross’s anxiety had something to do with someone other than him. “It’s getting faster. Do you want to leave?”

“Yes,” he confessed, “let’s go walk. Just promise you won’t freak out at me again.”

That chilled the air between them for a second before the virus’s shoulders fell. “Yeah. Sure.”

* * *

“Why do you keep asking me that?”

“I just want to understand.” Cross said while they walked. The air between them was thawing, but it was a slow thing. “It’s not like you don’t have expertise in literally every field ever made. And if you don’t, you know how to get it. This kind of easy, quiet life just doesn’t seem in line with what I know of your…” Cross trailed off.

Alex seemed angry again for just a second, but then he just shrugged, as though he’d realized he couldn’t really argue that point fairly.

Cross sighed. “I’m sorry about last week, alright? I’m not trying to imply anything or to piss you off, I swear. I just wanted to know… you know, how you got here, of all places. After you ate that nuke, I lost track of you for almost a year before you popped up here. Where did you go, before this?”

While he’d been talking, Alex’s eyes were getting far away. He seemed calmer now, but wrapped up in his own head, not really even paying attention to where he was going. “It’s a long story.” He said distantly.

Cross tried to throw him a line to pull him back to the present. As usual, a gentle peppering of aggression would do the trick. “We’ve got oodles of time. I flew all the way down to this boring ass little town, and I’m not going to sit here and watch you pout all day. Chop, chop. Story time.”

That did it. Instinctually alert now, Alex shook his head and scowled at him. “Alright, alright, you pushy dick. Where do you want me to start?”

“How about the beginning? Let’s make it easy. What was the first thing you did after the bomb?”

“Well, I dragged what was left of my body out of the ocean, which was mostly a handful of cells about the size of a chihuahua. When I was done scraping myself off the pavement, we decided to leave New York, so I grabbed Dana, broke the quarantine, and dropped her off at a safehouse a few states over. I figured she’d be safer from Blackwatch without me around,” he answered the question on the Captain’s face.

“What about now?”

He glanced at Cross. “It doesn’t matter, because you already found me. Wherever I go, somebody always will. This time, we’ve got our little deal, so I don’t have to run. That’s nice.”

“Alright, so where did you go first?” Cross asked, clenching his fists and focusing on keeping his pulse slow, but the squeezing of the chambers of his heart seemed to beat out an accusation at him all on their own.

_Li-ar. Li-ar. Li-ar._

Alex gave him a side eye, so Cross knew he noticed something was off. He must have assumed it was residual anxiety from their last fight, because he didn’t comment as he considered how to answer. “I just wandered for about a year, thought maybe I could use my unique position to do some good, I guess? Ended a few small wars, ate some war profiteers and broke up a handful of drug cartels. Boring shit.”

“Yeah, what a snooze.” Cross nodded, a little sarcastically, but Alex didn’t catch it.

“Eventually I got taken in by some people. A man and his daughter. Thought…” His jaw clamped shut, and he looked away. “Anyway, they ended up being just like all the humans I’d come across before. Selfish, evil. Everywhere I went, everyone I tried to help, they found new ways to disappoint me.”

“So then you—”

“I’m getting to it, if you’d stop interrupting. It’s hard enough to pick through all the other voices right now, so if you wouldn’t add yours...” Cross nodded, chastised, before waving a hand for him to continue.

“Alright. Okay. So at that point, I really thought I understood what Greene had been trying to do, with the infection. How much better everything would be if we were all just one being, one family, together. No dissonance, no hate, no harming each other because to do so would only be harming ourselves. Just all of us singing together. I… wasn’t in a great place. I thought about what Greene did, and I thought… maybe I could do it better. Make a hive. A new world, better than hers, and better than the human world.”

With a sinking sensation in his gut, Cross just listened.

“I was on my way back to Manhattan, where it all began. I was… I decided I’d had enough. Thought maybe I’d head down to the first populated area I saw and just spit Blacklight everywhere, because what was the point of any of it?”

Cross felt his heart start racing again, his mouth going dry as he began to sweat, and he couldn’t stop himself from encouraging him to continue, realizing a second too late that he’d interrupted again. “But you didn’t.”

“No, I didn’t.” He still sounded mortified that the idea had ever sounded acceptable to him.

“Surely in all of the memories you collected, you must have found something in them worth keeping humanity around for?” Cross was numb, having had no idea how close Alex had come to ending the entire world on a whim. No one had even the faintest clue how close they had come to annihilation.

“Honestly, it was hard to dig through all of the ones that involved Blackwatch soldiers gunning down uninfected women and children,” Alex said, like it was an interesting bit of trivia. “For some reason, after I got off my plane back in North America and started out, I just decided to run the rest of the way. The plane was… not a good idea. I don’t handle confined spaces very well, and I could get there faster if I didn’t have to obey traffic laws.”

Cross would have done the same thing, if he could. Air travel sucked, and he wasn’t fond of cramped spaces either.

“Anyway, I stopped in Willowbrook on a whim. It was quiet and out of the way, and I needed to find someone to consume before I went on. I found the diner, and then I just… sat down. Maybe I just wanted a peaceful moment to sit and pretend there was something in humanity worth keeping around before I tore it all apart.”

“_Jesus Christ._”

He flinched. “Cross, _I know, _okay? Please just— just let me tell it.”

“I know, sorry, it’s just— Sorry. You went to the diner. What next?”

“So, I was sitting there, looking around at this peace, wondering why anyone even bothered pretending they were anything other than violent, senseless animals…” he shook his head with his mouth in a thin line. “And then I noticed these kids. Dumb college kids, you know the kind, sitting a few tables down, watching the news on that little TV in the corner by the coffee machine. Watching humans imprisoning and killing other humans for being born on the wrong side of a made-up line. I was sick of watching it, sick of the reminder. Wished I could just hold on to the illusion of good a little longer.”

Cross didn’t dare interrupt now.

“And then they started talking about what they were watching. They were disgusted too, and they were _angry_, and I didn’t believe them at first. Because why would they _care _when humans were so awful to each other? But then I heard them making plans. They got all fired up, like stupid kids do. Making wild declarations, talking about staging protests. And then, the craziest thing happened.” Alex glanced at him, as if to make sure he was listening. “One of them said, _let’s go right now!_ and they all just,” he shook his head, a small smile fighting to take hold of his face. “they all just got up and went.”

“I’m guessing you tailed them?” Cross prompted when Alex began to spiral back into his own head.

“What?” He took a second to remember what they were talking about. “Oh, yeah. It wasn’t hard,” Alex lifted a shoulder. “I was curious, and it’s not like I was in any rush, anyway. They rented a bus, went the pretty close to the direction I was headed, all the way from here up to DC. It was out of my way, but not by much. I didn’t know why I was doing it, but I followed them all the way up to the Washington Monument. You know that big pool in front of it?”

“The Reflecting Pool,” Cross provided.

“That’s the one. So these dumb ass college students, halfway through a ridiculously expensive semester, they just started going nuts. I knew _about _those kinds of thing, but I’d only gotten some hazy eaten memories of YouTube videos. But this, in person, I have never seen anything like it. So _alive_.” He seemed awed, even after all the time that had passed. “All the best parts of what I used to love about humanity, right there.”

“What were they doing?”

“They started jumping into the reflecting pool, some of them throwing up signs they had made on the flight over, dragging everyone they saw into their crazy little demonstration until they had a hundred or so random passers-by all in on it. They kept it up for almost thirty hours like a filibuster or something, long enough for people to meet up with them from all over the neighboring states. Screaming protests, holding up signs, accosting policemen, being a nuisance, and every time some news station got too close, they were bombarded with stuff like _go to this website, donate to free children at the border,_ and _look what’s happening here, resist!_ For hours, it was just that. _Don’t look away, look! Look!_” He got distant again, but not in a bad way. “It was something.”

“They drove all the way across the country to stage a protest?” Cross raised his eyebrows, a little impressed despite himself. “That sounds like college students, alright. They’ve all got a little bit of saving the world to do. Fuck, I guess they did the biggest thing possible for the human race and they had no idea.”

“Not a clue.” Alex agreed mildly. “And they graduated that semester, actually. I never even got most of their names. But I just stood there and watched the cops get called in, and they swarmed them like walkers. Started spraying them with tear gas and fire hoses and just brutalizing them with those little baton things they carry around sometimes. It didn’t stop them at first, they were so determined. It was almost like they were invincible, even though they were frail little human adolescents. Most of them were arrested, but when they were released, I followed them back to their college.”

Alex halted in the middle of a deserted square, surrounded by small gardens filled with brilliantly multicolored mums and trickling water fountains. “Here.” He said, spreading his arms.

They’d been here not long before, but it looked different in the daylight, with the golden sun coming through the emerald leaves of the foliage above their heads, warming the sidewalk. A few bird feeders hung on nearby trees, dilapidated and clearly hand-made by students.

“Why?”

“It’s just that it was one of the most pointless things I’d ever seen, but I couldn’t stop wondering about it. Those kids started a fight they had no real hopes of winning, and they knew that. But if all they could do was draw attention to it, they would do it, even if it cost them. They missed almost a whole semester of classes because some of them were injured. They couldn’t heal like we can, limped for weeks, bruised or with bone fractures, because the cops beat them so badly. And do you know what?”

“What?”

For the first time in his entire partnership with him, Cross witnessed a real, genuine grin on Alex’s face. It wasn’t the feral sneer he’d seen on him before, which was too wide and had too many teeth, but one of _joy_, or maybe pride. He looked wholly present again, his eyes alert and bright and not glazed, his shoulders no longer drawn up to his ears as if he was being accosted. “All they could do afterward,” he enunciated carefully, “was talk about the next move.”

“After the way they got their asses beat?”

“Especially.” Alex nodded fervently. “They kept making plans and banners, started drives, called everyone into action that got within twenty feet of them. They started taking donations, trying to send food and water and medicine, anything they could do to help. For a whole month this place was screaming with movement and _life_, like I’d never seen in Manhattan.”

Cross was completely drawn in. For a typically withdrawn and terse person, Alex was an incredible orator when he wanted to be, or perhaps only when he was felt like drawing on the skills of those he’d consumed. Cross hadn’t thought the virus was capable of this level of passion about something that didn’t involve goring infected monsters or pulling Blackwatch troops in half longways.

He was starting to realize that he didn’t actually know anything about Alex at all.

Alex hadn’t seemed to notice his distraction, and kept talking. “So, I wandered up to the school every few days, just watching the hornet’s nest buzz, and this woman came up to me. Asked me what my name was, if I was a professor, because she’d seen me around lately. I told her no, and she said something like, ‘_aw man, Mrs. Mosely just retired, and our staff is short a history professor. I was really hoping you were her replacement, you look way cooler than the other guy they were interviewing._’ For some reason after that, I just… stayed.”

“Was it Ms. Steinberg?”

“Yeah, course it was. I didn’t get properly introduced to her until almost a year later, though. I faked some identification, got an apartment. I just thought I would hang around for a while, to bask in what I was going to miss when I… you know. But then after a while, I realized that while M— uh, Greene had been kind of right, mostly she was wrong.”

“How so?” Cross pressed, ignoring his little stutter.

“Doing good for the sake of one unit, a group that you’re a part of, it’s just like doing it for yourself. It doesn’t mean anything. But these college kids had no reason to care about imprisoned children thousands of miles away. It didn’t affect them, and it probably never would. But they _cared_. They stood up and made noise about something that had nothing to do with them for no other reason than because someone else needed help. And they took a hit for it, got up, and kept fighting. It was… I don’t know.” He scraped his foot at some gravel on the sidewalk. “It was important.”

“That’s a hell of a tale, Alex. You’re a good storyteller.” Cross told him, still amazed by both the story and Alex’s emotional expression.

“Thanks. And after that, things got… I don’t know, quieter.”

“On campus?”

“Oh no,” Alex laughed. “They’re _still_ doing that shit, are you kidding me? They have a club and they do fundraisers and everything.” He kept his eyes down, kicking at rocks, the smile slowly fading from his face, though not completely. “I mean, you know. The voices.”

Cross was a little confused. “What, the memories?”

“No, not the memories. It’s like before I moved up here, there was always this—“ he clenched a fist as if to emphasize, “_Really _powerful urge to do… well, what I was about to do. Spread the virus. End it all. Mostly it was Greene’s influence, not that I knew that at the time.” He shot Cross a nervous glance before he admitted, now a little discomfited, “She’s still in here, you know.”

“Who, Greene?” Cross was blindsided by that little tidbit.

He nodded. “I still have to shut her up every now and again, but mostly nowadays she just stays quiet unless she thinks she has advice. I almost never like what she had to say, so I buried her where she’s too far away to hear. I don’t listen, but I let her watch.”

Cross was rooted to the spot. Of everything he’d learned today, that… “You don’t mean just her memories, do you? She’s really in there?”

“Not comforting, is it?” He smiled bitterly. “Knowing that she’s watching, too?”

“No, it’s…” Cross thought about it. “No, it’s just… surprising. Different. You can hear her?”

“Like I said, she used to try to talk a lot. Like, _a lot. _She was always trying to get me to understand her grand plan. But after all of that business in DC? Suddenly it was all _manageable_. When I asked her to stop, she would. If I ever need her, she’s there.”

“Why didn’t you just absorb her, like everyone else? Could you not manage it? Is it because of what she is?” Cross felt a niggling sensation of worry that made no sense whatsoever.

“No, not _what_ she was, but I…” He jerked a shoulder, embarrassed. “I… I couldn’t tear her apart completely. I don’t know why I didn’t. She’s weak now, she can’t do anything on her own, but… I felt like—“ He looked upset now, like he was trying to defend himself, like he needed Cross to agree. “She didn’t _understand_. She never got a chance to see anything. She spent almost her whole life as a science experiment, and when I accidentally let her out, it was the first time in almost fifty years that she’d ever been outside, and I… I couldn’t…” He glanced away, and he looked distraught. “Whatever else she was, she— I know technically, I don’t have parents, but…”

“Alex?”

“She’s Mother.” He said quietly, ashamedly. “It just… it wasn’t right.”

Cross felt his heart break, and his whole world started to fall to pieces right alongside it.

“I know a lot of the awful things I’ve done have been at her suggestion. I didn’t even realize how much of a hold she had over me during the first outbreak until months after I consumed her. Even then, it got worse for a while before I figured out how to tune her out completely.”

“She was the one who compelled you.” Cross said, far away. “To do what you almost did.”

“I didn’t know it was her at first, but yeah. Don’t worry, she can’t anymore.” Alex quickly tried to reassure, but Cross barely even listening.

“When was the last time you listened to something she said?” His heart was racing now.

“I don’t know,” Alex answered, his face drawing tight with stress at Cross’s abrupt dismay. “She gets one or two words out every now and then, when she thinks they’re _really _important, and I let her. But conversation? I guess a few weeks after the protest, I think. Cross, are you… What’s the matter?” He asked, his shoulders falling. “What did I say this time?”

“Nothing,” Cross told him. He had to leave now, before he fully realized just what he had done. He was staring at Alex, _Zeus_, at a complete loss for words while the epiphany that had just struck him continued to do so, chipping away more pieces of him every time until there was nothing left but shattered glass. “You didn’t do anything wrong. You… you never did anything wrong.”

He pivoted and started walking away, then started sprinting. He had to go, he had to fix this, there had to still be time—

“Cross?” Alex sounded very small.

He kept running.

_Oh God, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry._


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it gets worse before it gets better :/

“Alex, I’m home!” Dana announced, fiddling with the door to get her keys loose. The lock was finicky so it took way too long, and it always pissed her off a little, but she vastly preferred it to when Alex forgot to lock the door at all. She settled her keys down on the dining room table, listening to the soft sounds coming from inside the kitchen. The light was on, and on any other day the savory smell coming from it would be enough to make her mouth water. The conversation they were about to have, however, killed any appetite she may have worked up during her long work shift. 

“Alex?” She called from the doorway, and Alex turned his head, his face oddly expressionless. “It’s you, right?” She hated having to ask, but this was too important for him to zone out in the middle of it. She needed his full attention for this.

“Yeah,” Alex eventually answered, his voice soft. “Got home early, so I thought I’d make you dinner.” 

“That’s very sweet of you.” She tried to sound as genuinely pleased as she could, but something about it fell flat. He didn’t seem to notice. “It smells great.” 

“Good,” he said, but he didn’t sound like it was good. “It’s almost done, I just need to… I’d never tried this recipe before. I hope...” He trailed off distractedly. 

Dana didn’t ask him to finish his thought. Whatever it was he’d been making, he slipped it into the oven with care before he turned back around to face her. He frowned, just now taking her in. “Something wrong?” His spine straightened and his eyes got sharp, and she put up a hand before he could start frisking her for injuries. 

“I… We need to talk about something, and we need to do it before I change my mind.” 

“About what?” Alex asked, looking really worried now. 

Good. The fact that he could muster concern meant he was fully present. She could tell something was bothering him, but she was afraid to drag it out. She didn’t exactly want to throw _this_ on top of whatever else he’d been dealing with, but she wouldn’t have the heart to do it if he got wound up about the other thing.

And if she didn’t tell him now, it would come out later, and that would be so much worse. She’d waited far too long already. “Look, Alex, I…” She took a deep breath. Better to rip the band aid off. “I found the runner.” 

He went still. “Wow.” He looked shocked, then confused, then impressed. “That’s great, Dana! Good work! Have you told C— Uh, Cross?“ he choked on his name for just an instant. 

“Yes.” 

She guessed that he and Cross had had some kind of a fight. Alex was never very good at handling that kind of thing; not regret, nor reconciliation. Dana wanted to know what happened, but they couldn’t get into it right now. Cross would have to wait. She winced, because this was where the ugly part came in. “I… I wasn’t sure, at first, and I needed to be really sure, but… It’s her. I know I’m right.” 

Alex quirked his head, a silent request for her to continue. When she didn't go on, his face fell. “What’s wrong?” He asked, now apprehensive. “Dana, who is it?” 

Dana shook for a second to get herself under control. She knew she had to do this, to be honest, because otherwise he would be looking for this runner for the rest of their lives, would see signs of it whether they actually existed or not. People could get hurt. She had to do this. _She had to do this. _

“It… She was a _kid.”_ Her voice cracked. “A nine-year-old little girl.” 

Alex took it like a blow to the chest. The air rushed out of him, and he was silent for a long time. “I wish I could say I was surprised,” he said finally. “That Blackwatch wouldn’t do that to a kid, but I know better. I’ve got memories of babies. And Pariah.” 

No wonder his stolen memories tormented him so badly. Dana’s skin crawled. _Oh, god. _

“Are you sure it’s her?” He asked after another pause, quiet enough that she had to strain to hear. “What’s your evidence?” 

“There’s no one else it could be.” Dana answered, as though defending herself. She knew it wasn’t an accusation, knew that his brain didn’t work that way, that he was just trying to collect all of the information available. She felt damned all the same. “She showed up in town the same week you— there was that super soldier at the school.” She didn’t like the way he twitched at that, or the way he was holding himself. “She said she couldn’t remember her name, didn’t know where she’d come from. No one could identify her, and every time they did a DNA test it came back corrupted or inconclusive. Unknown genetic disorder, the charts said.” 

“That tracks,” Alex agreed reluctantly. “Redlight does nasty things to human DNA. It’s why most of the walkers are covered in tumors. But she couldn’t have been obviously symptomatic, or she never would have stayed under the radar this long.” He reasoned, but his mind was elsewhere, putting together pieces while he stared off into the distance. 

Dana bit her lip. “I’m not wrong, and I know I’m not, and I hate it. I wanted so badly to be wrong.” 

“Have you met her?” He looked intrigued now. “We should try to talk to her.” 

“No, I’d just been watching her. After the first week, I—“ 

“Wait.” Alex said sharply, his head snapping up. “How long?” 

“What?” 

_“How long have you been watching her?”_ There was something wrong with the way he asked it. 

Dana was a little confused. She hadn’t expected that to be the detail that he had a problem with. “Almost a month after I figured it out.” 

“Dana,” he said, and it was calm, but she could see the little flickers of agitation rolling from him in waves. She didn’t understand what he was suddenly so shaken up about, if the identity of the runner had less impact than this. But then he took a deep breath, and went on, his voice thick. “You’ve known for a month.” He closed his eyes and then opened them slowly. “You’ve known for _over _a month.” 

“I wanted to make sure that…” She trailed off at the look on his face. 

“You didn’t tell me.” He said, and it was too quiet. He was staring at his hands. 

She deflated. “No, I didn’t. I… I wanted to be thorough.” It sounded hollow to her own ears. 

_“Why?” _

Dana had been little, perhaps four or five, the first time her father took a swing at her older brother, the original Alexander Mercer, sending his lanky teenage body flying backward a few feet. She still remembered his face like it was yesterday, that mixture of shock and open hurt. It had made her cry for hours afterward. 

It was nothing compared to the look on Alex’s face now. 

“What did you think I would do, Dana?” He asked, and she’d never seen him look so betrayed in her entire life. 

“Nothing, I just—“ 

“Did you think I would kill her?” He demanded heatedly. “Did you think I would just leap off and murder her on just your say-so? A _child?” _

“N-no, but—“ 

“You told _Cross.”_ He spat, and that was definitely an accusation now. “You told Cross and not me. Why?” 

“I told him… a while ago. I didn’t give him anything but a name, and he told that name to Blackwatch, and... He didn’t do it himself, because… but they…” She hung her head and choked back a sob. 

The only reason Blackwatch had gotten away with it was that Alex had been on the other side of town, distracted by helping a group of students prepare for finals. They had rolled up on the street and taken her, casually as you please. Mia was gone, and it was hours before her caretakers had realized something was wrong. 

Dana felt her eyes well up with hot tears. “And— And they—” 

Alex’s eyes were wide. “Dana,” He was rooted to the spot in horror, staring at her as though he had no idea who she was. It was a look she’d gotten from him several times before, what with his memory problems, but this was probably the first time that it ruined her. “Dana, _what have you done?” _

“I was just— I thought that there was no way that she could have made it across the country by herself, if she was really just a little girl. Unless she was like you, and if she was, she could have—” 

“Like... like _me__?”_ Alex seemed to shatter. “You sold her to Gentek because you thought she was _l__ike me_?” 

Dana felt her stomach drop to her shoes. “That’s not what I meant,” she tried to amend quickly, but he wasn’t listening anymore. 

“You and Cross both, huh?! What is so fucking_ wrong _with—!” 

The fire alarm went off. He startled, shocked out of finishing that thought, and they both realized at the same time that whatever he’d put in the oven had started to smoke. Alex pulled it out without bothering with oven mitts, tossing it arbitrarily in the direction of the stove top before launching a tendril at the fire alarm, crushing it instantly. It sparked and sputtered out, showering him with a sprinkle of plastic shards and crushed electronics. The hot pan slid to the floor a few seconds later, clanging loudly against the kitchen tile in the sudden quiet and dumping bubbling hot cheese and rich smelling red sauce onto the spotless white tile. 

Dana was frozen, but not from fear. She had lived in a Red Zone for months, and she’d seen more horrible monsters than she could count. Right now, she felt worse than any of them. “Alex,” she tried after a few moments of ringing silence. 

“It’s burned.” He said, eyes empty. He wasn’t looking at her. “I’ll go get something else.” 

And then he was gone. 

* * * 

The front door opened with the cheerful little chime of a bell, and the rush of air from outside brought in a rush of smell-sound-sensation that, as usual, he took less than an instant to compartmentalize: cooked meat, tangy lemons, antiseptic, coffee, syrup. Unimportant. 

There was an odd flavor in the air, brushing up against his skin with the gentle currents, but he didn’t want to try to think right now to identify it. He didn’t care. He was so _ tired_. 

“Hi, Mr. Mendel! What’ll it be today?” The cashier, an older Hispanic woman named Jamie, waved him over to the counter. 

“Carry out,” Alex said tersely. “The usual.” He was a little overstimulated by his senses, the low pulse of beating hearts vibrating gently through the air like an erratic drumline, the bass underneath the almost overwhelming sounds of talking, eating, and clinking. Even with a few feet between them, he could taste the cashier’s warm breath ghosting his skin. 

He just wanted quiet. He just wanted to think. He just wanted to forget what he’d just learned, but that was the problem. There was no forgetting, not for him. Not one single detail. 

_Unless she was like you, unless she was like you, unless she was_ like you— 

“Sure thing! For Dana, too?” 

Alex flinched minutely. She didn’t notice. “Yeah,” he confirmed, handing over a twenty dollar bill. He didn’t let anything show on his face. 

It just… None of this made any sense. The runner was a _child?_

From Dana’s description, she had to have been right. Everything fit like a glove, from the timing to unsuccessful blood tests, but that was the problem, wasn’t it? It was too perfect. He was just so confused, his mind wrapped up in a blanket of hurt and his heart flayed raw. 

“A little late for dinner, isn’t it?” Jamie interrupted his brooding, looking up at him from underneath her eyelashes as she counted his change. 

“I guess.” Alex shrugged. 

“So who's that handsome guy I see you with like, all the time?” She probed. “He’s kind of a silver fox, huh?” 

Alex paused warily. He unsure what a silver fox was, but the tone of her voice made him unwilling to ask. “Nobody.” 

“So, you guys aren’t, like, together?” Jamie asked, pouring a generous helping of caramel into one of the coffees, just like Dana liked it. 

He shook his head, his mind elsewhere. 

“Oh, alright. Just asking.” She winked conspiratorially. Jamie was prompt and smart and Dana liked her, but she talked too much sometimes. “It’s just what everyone else seems to think,” she laughed. “You guys meet up so often, and you always have lunch together. Sometimes he makes you smile. I mean, you don’t really _smile,_ but it’s nice to see someone break through that crunchy, stoic exterior.” 

Alex hummed noncommittally, unsure what to do with this new information and starting to get a little uncomfortable. He wandered to the end of the counter to wait for his order. 

How had one single little girl made it out of Gentek on her own? If she was smart or powerful enough to do that, why come here, if not to reach out to him? And why, after all she must have gone through to escape, would she allow herself to be recaptured without a fuss? She had to have used something to fight her way out in the first place, not to mention breaking the Quarantine, but where had that ability gone? 

Somewhere in the back of his brain, in that hazy, dark web of neural connections in which Greene watched him, he felt a sudden, desperate resistance. 

_ Not now, _he told Her, because he was trying to think and She was making it difficult. Normally, a word or two was all it took and She would fall silent, but instead She struggled harder, clawing at something in him, trying to push one important something to the tip of his tongue. He wished She wouldn’t do this. He wasn’t in a place for Her to try to play mind games with him right now. 

_ I’m not in the mood. Cut it out,_ he ordered warningly when She kept it up, _or I’ll crush you. _

She kept fighting him until finally, exhausted, he gave in. 

_ Why_. 

It was all She could manage to get out, Her voice echoing about in his head, and just like a sound, it couldn’t actually touch him. He felt a little safer, knowing She couldn’t actually take hold, and he let the connection open up, just a fraction. 

_ Why __what?! _He shot back, and She forced a thought to him, a confusing blur of sensation and meaning that finally solidified into a form of communication. 

_ Why__?_ She insisted. _Why Cross? _

He went still, very, very still… because She was _right_. 

Why Cross. _Why Cross? _

They could have picked anyone for this mission. Why specifically pick someone Alex had history with? Cross had taken a huge risk seeking him out, and he hadn’t specifically needed his cooperation. They could have kept watching him just like they had been before, quietly searching for the runner under his nose. He likely would have assumed that they were carrying on just as they had been, business as usual. He never would have even noticed that wasn’t what they were doing. Alex had already resigned himself to ignoring his babysitters; why reach out to him at all?

And this town was nothing to them. It was a little larger than Hope, Idaho, sure. But the government did much more high-profile awful shit all the time, and mostly people didn’t notice. The eyes of the world were still on Manhattan, and that’s all the media cared about, so Blackwatch could have gotten away with just about anything at this point. Against everything else, one tiny little nowhere town falling off the map was just white noise. 

So why send Cross specifically? And why wouldn’t he have told Alex that they found the runner, that he could stop looking? Why would he keep coming around if he didn’t need to be here? 

Why bother with the long game? Why send Cross in, and why put up with his lack of progress for an entire year? That was ridiculous. If they were really worried about this runner, Blackwatch would have wanted them brought in immediately. A year was an eternity for a dangerous, smart, powerful viral being to be on the loose. Why not send in the cavalry immediately? Why not just bomb the whole place, and call it a terrorist attack? 

Unless the runner wasn’t actually dangerous, in which case, how had a single little girl broken quarantine and gotten here all on her own? She shouldn’t have made it at all, unless… 

Not unless Blackwatch had… not unless they had… 

_ Know why, _Greene whispered, and something about it was reluctant. _Al__ready know why. _

His insides turned to ice. No_. No! _

He’d been lied to. He’d been _tricked._ He’d been manipulated by Cross _again. _

The runner was an excuse, a distraction. She was supposed to keep Alex occupied, but Alex hadn't found her, _Dana_ had, and she... she hadn't told him. She'd lied, just like Cross. That poor little kid was only there to be a mouse for Alex to chase, for Cross to pretend to chase, because it was never her they were after, was it? 

The front door opened again, bringing in more smells, and he jerked a little in surprise, whipping his head around to take them in. 

“Whoa, sorry! I was just trying to— Here’s your food, Mr. Mendel.” Jamie was standing close to him, still on the other side of the counter. She stumbled over apologies, looking a little mortified that she might have upset him, but he barely noticed. His senses kicked into overdrive, picking up everything all at once. It was maddening as he tried to parse through them quickly, but there was so much, hitting him like an automatic rifle in rapid fire, and he could barely even discern which ones were sights and which were smells— 

—coffee soap napkins sugar _human_ wood paint lemons _skin_ bread _heart_ plastic _blood_ paper _cells—_

The smell hit him again, powerful enough to break through the haze—body armor, leather, gun oil, the heady and sour sting of Bloodtox, Redlight—usually these smells were flavored by the familiar scent of Robert Cross, which would have taken the others from alarming to safe. 

But Cross was gone, and Cross was a _liar,_ and Alex couldn’t pick out his particular scent at all. 

“Mr. Mendel?” 

He took the bag of food from her, distracted, and thanked her quietly. He was looking around, scenting out that Blackwatch stink. It was far too strong, there were too many for the usual spies that watched him on occasion. 

“Do you have a pen?” He asked Jamie, voice barely heard above the noise of the diner. 

“Uh, sure. Here.” 

He took it from her without a glance, still watching out of the windows. 

Everything else seemed normal: the familiar aroma of coffee, books, the chemicals that the kitchen staff cleaned the floors and counters with. There was Jonesy in the corner on a barstool, sharing a few vanilla milkshakes with a young man from Calculus II that he’d had his eyes on. The artificial flavoring mixed into the cream lacked the bite of real vanilla, but it was familiar. Safe. These smells wrapped him in the comfortable routine of his life. 

They were tainted now by the smell of military personnel. Unknowns. 

Alex uncapped the pen and scrawled a quick note on a napkin, stuffed it into the bag of food, and handed it back to the cashier. “Give this to Dana, alright?” 

“Mr. Mendel?” She asked, taking it from him with concerned eyes. 

Alex closed his eyes and took a breath. He was wrong to think he could have this. Things like him didn’t get friends, or happy endings, or families. He had known on some level that this day would come, but after everything that happened, he’d just— he’d thought— 

He’d just thought he’d have someone by his side when it did. 

_ Here_, said Mother quietly, soothingly. _Always here. _

As if having a voice in your head could possibly be a comfort. 

Oddly enough though, it _ was_. 

“Hey Zeus,” came a call from the direction of one of the side doors. Alex stiffened, feeling biomass churn restlessly. He turned, struggling to keep his cohesion so as not to start a panic. Behind him were five men, dressed casually but with hints of black body armor emerging from the folds of their clothes. They were accompanied by the tangy stink of Bloodtox. 

“I’d say it was a pleasure to see you again, Mercer, but one doesn’t exactly exchange pleasantries with germs.” 

* * * 

Cross came flying into the room, nearly tearing the door from its hinges, sliding to a halt in front of General McIntyre’s desk. 

The man barely even reacted this time, besides setting down a file he’d been perusing and snapping, “Captain, I swear on my whole career, if you come in here like that one more fucking time—” 

“I made a mistake,” Cross interrupted, unable to stop himself. “I made a mistake. We can’t—” 

“Take a breath, Captain, and consider your next words carefully. This is not how you address a superior officer.” The General informed him warningly. 

“Apologies, sir,” Cross answered, shifting into parade rest once he’d gotten his breath back. A muscle jumped in his jaw and his heart was pounding in his chest like a desperate, frenzied animal against the bars of a cage. It was then he noticed Vasquez entering the room behind him. 

“There was a disturbance?” He inquired meekly. 

Cross rounded on him, abandoning his composure without a second thought. “We can’t go after Mercer.” 

Vasquez’s puzzlement could be observed from orbit. “What are you on about this time, captain?” 

“He hasn’t done anything worth going after him for since before the bomb.” He explained in a frantic rush. “I don’t think he wants to hurt anyone. We’ve never given him any choice! And the risk required to apprehend him outweighs the damage he could—” 

“You’re telling me we should just sit around, knowing where it is and what its capable of, and not do anything at all just because it appears docile now?” Vasquez _tsked_. “My, my.” 

“Are you really certain about assaulting him in the middle of a civilian population when—” 

“Sure am.” He replied casually, as though this wasn’t a world-ending decision. He glanced sideways, deferring to his commanding officer. 

Distraught, Cross turned back to McIntyre. “We could lose so many lives for nothing!” 

“There’s casualties in every operation, Captain. Surely you know that. I think your new Wisemen should do nicely for this task, though, don’t you?” 

Horror squeezed his heart with icy fingers. _“Sir!”_

“Don’t worry, Cross. If your intel was as good as you said it was, they shouldn’t be in too much peril.” The old man smiled serenely at the two of them. “Of course, you needn’t be involved. I want you here. You’ve been gone too long, we’ve got some hives cropping up in inconvenient places and I need your expertise to deal with them.” 

His brain was a mess of screaming and conflicting plans. Whether or not he gave that order himself, Alex would never trust him again. Maybe he could get a warning out to the Mercers before Blackwatch showed up. He could tell Alex to get himself and his sister to safety, and then… 

And then Blackwatch would burn that town to cinders looking for him. Cross wouldn’t allow that, and neither would they. That is, if the two of them didn’t try to stand their ground. It would be a massacre if someone tried to back Alex into a corner, especially if his sister was in danger, and Cross would lose his Wisemen to Zeus for the second time. There wasn’t a good option here. 

God, what could Cross do but comply? If they forced him to step down, or arrested him, he wouldn’t be in any place to do anything. His options lay before him like diverging streams of a river, but they all lead to the same bitter end. He had no choice; he was cornered. He couldn’t do anything for Alex if they forced him from his position, but it felt like a betrayal. It _was _a betrayal. 

“Yes, sir. I’ll… I’ll give the order.” The words felt like sandpaper, scraping on his tongue as they left his mouth. 

“No need, Commander, I already have.” The General proclaimed blandly. 

His stomach swooped. _No, no, no, this can’t be happening. My day can’t get this bad, can it? _“Sorry, sir?” 

“Oh, the containment chamber was completed far ahead of schedule, and you seemed so busy lately, so I went ahead and made that order for you this morning.” He answered easily, picking a file at random from his desk and opening it again, but not before brushing some invisible lint off of the sleeve of his immaculate uniform. He sounded pleasant enough, but Cross could hear what wasn’t being said. “Vasquez, sometime within the next few hours you should hear back from your team and the Wisemen. You’ll be meeting them with a transport to move the Blacklight virus into Blackwatch custody.” 

Vasquez nodded, unconcerned. “Of course, sir.” 

Cross just stood there, dread crashing over him in waves, the implications of what had just transpired whirling in his head like angry Hydras. There was no doubt going to be a big mess and a lot of casualties, and he didn’t know whose they would be or where it would happen, and there was no answer he liked. He had to do something, anything, but any course he could take from here was just damage control, pure and simple. And he couldn’t even argue, couldn’t point any fingers, because he’d done this himself, with his own hands. To top things off, he had burst in here to shout at the general. The fact that he hadn’t been killed on the spot was nothing short of a miracle. He wasn’t even sure what he’d been thinking, because he should have done this smarter. It was just one more way he’d failed the Mercers and that poor little town.

But he couldn’t just do nothing. "Sir, I am _begging __you _to listen to me. This is wrong.” Cross reached for calm and fell miserably short. 

“Oh?” General McIntyre asked, interest dull as a doorstop. “Do tell.” 

“I don’t think you understand—” 

“No, here’s the thing _you _don’t understand, Cross.” McIntyre stood from his chair, coming around the other side of his desk to stand before him, his words casual but cutting. “You are Blackwatch. You swore an oath to hold the Red Line, and you are currently siding with a viral abomination against your own species. You knew where Zeus was for an entire year and you _lied_, Captain, because that’s what you are. A dishonorable, lying little worm.” 

The words were like a punch to the face because they were true, all of it was true. 

“Everything has a price, Cross, especially deception. You lied to Blackwatch, you lied to Zeus. So here is what’s going to happen now.” 

Vasquez was watching with mild but uninvested interest. Cross was rooted to the spot. “Yes, sir.” He said weakly.

“You are going to do everything in your power to make sure that this venture has actually been worthwhile. You do exactly as you are ordered, do you understand? You are going to return to your quarters, get some rest, and tomorrow you will receive your next mission from me. You will keep your head down and ensure I never hear any words from your mouth that aren’t_ yes _and _sir._ Am I clear, commander?” 

He almost missed his window to respond. “Yes, sir.” 

“In case I wasn’t clear, Cross, that was a dismissal.” 

“Yes, sir.” He snapped to, startled from his shock, then gave a crisp salute and left the office.

When the doors closed behind him, he stopped sagged against the wall. His hands clenched into fists and, for just a moment, he let despair take hold of his body, tightening every muscle and bowing his spine under the weight of it. He took another moment to get his breathing under control, to devise a new plan. There was something he could do. There had to be. 

God, he had such a fucking headache.

As he finally pulled himself together and started down the hall, he heard the doors open and close again, and the soft click of the handle latching itself was like a cannon going off in the almost silent halls. Vasquez had followed him outside, a supremely bored look on his face. Cross was tempted to punch it off of him, but it would almost definitely kill him to do so, and the last thing he needed right now was to be dragged off for committing murder outside of the door of the highest ranking person in the United States that didn’t sit in an oval office. 

“That went well.” Vasquez stated evenly. 

“Yeah, thanks, Vas, that helps.” Cross glared, before deflating. “He’s not going to snap.” 

“Sorry?” The other captain stopped halfway down the hall, still a few meters away. 

“The thing you told me, about Mercer going nuts and infecting everyone, snapping and going crazy… it isn’t going to happen.” 

“What makes you say that?” 

“Because it already did,” Cross answered, running a hand through his own hair, over the streak of grey that cut a trail through the black. “And he got past it. He was compelled to make hives, or whatever he was supposed to do, and he snapped out of it and didn’t do it. It wasn’t even him in the first place. He’s not going to do anything. I don’t think he ever was, and… and he’s a good person, he doesn’t deserve this.” 

“So?” 

Slowly lowering his hand, stilling his movement when he realized he’d started pacing again, Cross asked, each syllable slow and deliberate. “What do you mean, _so?"_

“So what if he’s not going to cause some biological apocalypse. So what if I made that up.” His face was still empty, devoid of anything, even as he made a sarcastic little_ what can you do_ gesture. The man was a fucking robot. “I doubt the General would have gone for it otherwise, but who gives a damn as long as we get Zeus?” 

“You lied.” Cross watched him cross the distance before he passed him at the end of the hall, turning a corner with a quick stride. He scrambled to follow. 

“Oh, are you going to preach to me about lies, Cross?” Vasquez shook his head and stared arrogantly forward. His eyes barely moved. “Blacklight is too valuable for us to let it go. Surely you know that, since your own enhancements are closer to Mercer’s strain than Redlight.” 

Cross hadn’t known that, but he didn’t give him the satisfaction of giving that away. 

This was even worse than he’d thought. “You’re going to _use _Blacklight.” He had been a _fool_. “All that shit about him making a hive and taking over… it was all bullshit. You just wanted the virus back under your control. You couldn’t stand that the virus wasn’t yours to toy with.” 

“We put a lot of capital and resources into the Blacklight project, Cross. Surely you can see why having something like that at our disposal is beneficial to securing our interests. Why would we just let it go?” 

They made it down a few more corridors before he got his words back. “You have no idea what you’ve done.” He said, heedless of the guards that were dotted the halls in this part of the building. He didn’t even care anymore if he spilled high-level secrets to the grunts on guard duty. This whole organization could burn, for all he cared. 

Vasquez shrugged impassively, but Cross could practically taste his smug satisfaction. “Advanced my career? Took you down a peg? Set some wheels in motion to apprehend a literal man-eating monster? Honestly, I’m having a problem seeing the issue here.” He sized him up, not breaking his stride. “I thought you’d be happy to get the thing that ate your team. What even happened to you? You were on our side. What changed?” 

“Nothing, I just have a conscience.” 

“Well, better late than never, I suppose.” 

Without warning, Cross grabbed him by the front of his shirt and lifted him off of his feet. The agents standing guard outside all whipped out weapons and took a step forward, but they must have had some kind of inkling of what Cross was, because they didn’t dare fire. 

_“_All_ the lives_,” Cross slammed him up against the wall for emphasis, the virus in his veins singing for violence. “All those lives we’re about to lose, those are on _you!_ You have no idea what this thing is capable—” He shook his head, ashamed. “You’ve never faced him in a fight. You have no idea. The only thing keeping him from tearing through here like a fucking hurricane and absorbing the entire country is his patience and his conscience. Those troops you sent, though, _ my _ troops, you sent them to their deaths. That, or you’ve sentenced us all when they get him here, because—"

Cross cut off when he felt the cold metal barrel of a firearm pressed to the back of his head. He could feel the hand holding it tremoring, just slightly, and it dampened his rage for the moment. It looked like guards had finally had enough of their little spat.

Vasquez used his distraction to pry his hands open and pull free of his grasp, and his feet touched back to the floor when Cross let him go. He likely had no idea that the only reason he was still alive at the moment was because Cross had decided it wasn’t worth stabbing the bastard through the eye socket with his own splintered wrist bones just to make his point.

“At ease, gentlemen.” Cross said slowly, exaggerating his docile movements before turning to face the agent that had put a gun to his head. He reached up and carefully pushed the barrel of his gun down towards the floor. “That won’t be necessary. I wouldn’t kill him here; it would stain the carpet.” 

“What are you so worried about, Cross?" Vasquez leered. "If we catch it, and we will, it’s going to be contained. Thanks to your intel, we know its weaknesses. We’ve got the best and brightest minds and they’ve built us something that will work.” 

"He—"

“—is an _it__! _How do you keep forgetting that, Captain?” Vasquez massaged his bruised chest gently as he spoke. “It is not your _friend_. It is a _monster _that _eats __people_. If you’ve fought Zeus personally, there’s no excuse if you’ve forgotten what it’s done. Blackwatch has a list, did you know that? At the last count, there's about one-thousand and two hundred names on it, people who would still be able to go home to their families if that thing hadn’t needed a snack!" 

Cross whirled around and punched the wall with every ounce of his strength. His fist went right through it, through the steel paneling and the wooden planks and beams and wiring, but he didn’t care. He didn’t care about the surprised and alarmed faces he could see looking at him from the other side. He didn’t care that the guards were raising their weapons again. 

He yanked out his hand with a roar. “_You weren’t there!” _

Vasquez had gone still as a photograph. 

Cross could feel his insides boiling, the virus screaming for blood. “You can talk all you want about what you’ve heard he’s done, but during the initial infection, _ you __weren’__t t__here!_ You don’t _know!_ I watched Zeus eat his way through my whole squadron, men I’d trained and worked with for years just wiped out in less time than it takes to do a fucking crossword puzzle! I watched my men die the most horrifying deaths imaginable, and you think _you_ know!?” 

He stepped forward again, and he honestly wasn’t sure what he was about to do, except that it was probably something violent. 

But then, over Vasquez’s shoulder, he caught a pair of eyes. It was some low-level grunt, some nobody who had been unfortunate enough to get assigned to this part of the facility today. Nothing about him was striking or out of the ordinary, but Cross froze anyway. 

He was just a kid, maybe twenty-three or twenty-four. His eyes were wide, and he was shaking like a leaf. His face was pale and he was squeezing his firearm with a grip that Cross would have rebuked him for, had he been a Wiseman. He looked scared shitless.

The thing of it was, people didn’t look at Cross that way. Usually he got awe, or amazement. Suspicion, maybe. Dislike, on occasion. Jealousy. 

But terror? 

Nobody had ever looked at him as though he was Zeus. 

Cross stared at him for a second, reigning in his temper, and then back to Vasquez, holding the other captain’s dead, shark-like eyes. “He’s going to know it was me. You better hope he doesn’t get out.” 

“What, you’re afraid that it’s going to get loose and come after you, because it knows you lied?” He scoffed as though unimpressed by his little tantrum, but Cross could see his pulse thrumming rapidly in his throat. “Why the hell would I care about that?” 

Cross turned away, the wheels in his head already in motion. He didn’t have a plan, but he had a place to start. “Because if Alex eats me, he knows everything I know, Commander Vasquez. And he’ll be coming for you next.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ao3 keeps screwing up the formatting on my chapters and just putting a whole bunch of spaces everywhere so if i've missed correcting any wonky formatting let me know, please


	11. Chapter 11

Alex expected smirks and the usual amount of Blackwatch smugness, and he wasn’t disappointed. Cross wasn’t among them, but he already knew that was the case. It didn’t stop the hot burn of betrayal that ate through him like nuclear fire.

_Destroy_, Greene whispered. _Threat_. _Destroy them._ Alex didn’t stifle Her, but he ignored Her. It wouldn’t have been fair, since he had to say it was something he wanted to do very much.

“What do you want?” A low growl worked its way up his throat, but he smothered it before it could make itself known.

“Well here’s the thing, Mercer.” Said one of the soldiers, a smirk on his face. “Cross’s little games with you are getting pretty tired.”

This was very much not good. His current diet wasn’t ideal. It barely even sustained him, and it wasn’t nearly good enough to start a fight with D-Code goons. Alex was underweight, underfed, and weakened. After a few of those troops, he’d be well enough to take the rest of them, but in his current state, he was almost no stronger than they were. Maybe he could snag a few before they hit him with something nasty, but that would mean consuming living human beings right there in full view of an entire restaurant worth of people, some of them his students.

It would also mean that the innocents in the diner would be in the line of fire. That would not happen, even if he had to die for it.

Alex considered his next words with care. He didn’t have all the information yet, and Dana had taught him that much, at least: sometimes it was better to let your opponent talk before you lay out all your cards. “So what does that mean, then?”

“It means, Zeus, that you’re going to come quietly, or I’m going to destroy the little home you’ve made here and kill every single one of your students slowly. Some of them we might even do some experiments on, first. We’re running a little low on test subjects.” Alex could hear his smirk behind his visor. “Then, our R&D is going to have a field day dissecting you.”

That Cross betrayed him meant something, more than it should have. It was clouding his judgement, distracting him from thinking this through, but how could he have been so _stupid__!_

The stifled growling started up again, and he felt biomass coiling and rolling inside like an ocean in storm, but he kept himself outwardly very still. “Why would I care if you killed them?” He leered. “They’re just meat. They’re beneath me.”

“Nice try, Zeus, but it’s too late for that.”

The room at large was only now growing quiet, patrons just starting to realize something wasn’t right with this picture. Jamie, who had heard some but not all of the exchange, was starting to tremble. Over the shoulder of one of the Blackwatch troopers, he saw Jonesy quietly pushing his date towards the door, frantically waving others to follow, to escape. He caught Alex’s eye and shook his head pleadingly.

_“Please, no.”_ He was mouthing. “_Please_.”

_Run_, Greene told him, and he could feel Her fear. _Run or fight_. _Choose. _

“…Mr. Mendel?” The cashier whispered. “What are they saying?”

Mother urged him. _Choose fast._

“Alex? Who are these people?” Jamie asked again, louder, and if he could just think—

_Fight. Fight!_

“Be _quiet_,” he snapped, and he wasn’t even sure which of them he was talking to, but he instantly felt horrible. That was all Zeus, and it didn’t belong here. Not here.

He glanced backward. “Sorry.” He smiled even as his ears were ringing and everything crashed all around him. “We’ll take this outside, don’t worry.”

“Tick tock, Mr. Mercer. What’ll it be?” Called the head soldier. Alex ignored him for the moment in favor of the frightened woman.

Jamie was staring at him, eyes like saucers. “Alex? Did he— did he say Mercer? Are you… is this…”

The mass that churned within him roiled and twisted in distress. If he had a heart, he would have swallowed it.

He had to take care of this now. The longer this dragged out, and the more that was said, the more irreparable the damage to the town and the higher the chance that the locals would be put in danger.

“Don’t worry,” he said again. He turned toward her just a fraction more, and she flinched, backing up toward the wall. “Everything’s going to be fine,” he tried, but she was frozen in her fear. Disheartened, he then turned back to the Blackwatch soldiers, angry that they were scaring town, and at himself for not seeing it coming, for trusting Cross so explicitly. He’d been so blind.

“_Don’t worry,” _one of the soldiers mocked. “Listen to it, captain. Pinocchio thinks it’s a real boy.”

It was similar enough to a jab Cross had made at him once that he felt his hackles rise even further, cold hatred suffusing him instantly. “Once we go outside, what’s going to stop me from peeling your skin away from your bodies like a straw wrapper?”

“Hmmm, that’s a toughie.” The apparent lead asshole seemed to consider for a second. “How about the squad I’ve got parked in a surveillance van outside or your sister’s house? The snipers posted on all of the windows, watching her every move? Or, if that’s not enough, the concealed thermobaric tank waiting outside your campus to blast your precious students to cinders? You remember those, right? Remember what it felt like to take one of those shells to the face? We so loved to hear you scream whenever you got on the wrong side of one of those. Good times, eh, Mercer?”

Outside the window, he could see Jonesy sprinting away towards his car with a few others in tow. He watched them for a second as they piled in haphazardly, started the engine, and disappeared with a squeal of tires.

_Gone. Safe._

“That’s enough,” Alex snarled now, deeply layered with inhuman tones. “Jamie, I’m going outside. Don’t let anyone follow us.”

She nodded, and her throat worked for a second like she was struggling for air, but she didn’t say anything.

“Outside.” Alex shoved past the black line, without checking to see if they followed. He stepped out the side door, moving toward the wall along the back of the diner, one without any windows. If this had to get violent, he didn’t want anyone to see it.

There were five points of heat, of food standing behind him, and there, off some distance away, were others, the scents of more Wisemen carried downwind from further in the parking lot.

Then Alex made to turn around to face the soldiers only to feel a hot sting right in the center of his spine.

_Of course._

Like an idiot, he had turned his back on his enemy. His time out of the fight had dulled his instincts, and no doubt his trust in Cross had made him less habitually wary of Blackwatch uniforms. He was paying the price dearly now.

Alex roared, but it after a few moments it pitched sharply upwards into a pained cry. That tiny sting spread out, leaking the telltale searing burn of Bloodtox into him like venom, though it was different this time. He felt his grasp on his cohesion slipping away as the viral particles lost their hold on one another. He started to lose track of his surroundings and his mass shifted into something less than human.

Alex lashed out and thought his blow might have met flesh, but he couldn’t see well enough to make an effective strike. He willed his claws into existence, but only got a vague sensation of lightness for his efforts, an uncomfortable pull in his entire being that let him know he didn’t have the biomass to pull it off anymore.

_NO!_ Green screamed in his head, and he wondered if humans felt this helpless all the time. His conscious headspace was getting smaller, lacking the neural connections to carry thought, barely coherent enough to register the hated feeling of being prey.

His entire being was reduced to a singular, white hot agony when something connected with his gut, and it was familiar enough that it had to be one of those shock batons, like Cross had used on him before.

He couldn’t scream, couldn’t think, had to fight, could only… he had to…

* * *

Really, it was just a tube.

It also kind of looked like one of those things from those old science fiction shows she’d watched as a kid, where they put people in little pods to freeze them and keep them young during long voyages through space.

Some of the soldiers that stood guard inside sometimes, the ones with the really high clearance levels, had decided that it looked more like some kind of high-end fancy jellyfish tank from the aquarium. Jellyfish were probably closer to human than what was about to go into it, though.

Chrissy Jury wrung her hands anxiously, waiting for the field team to show up with the subject. That’s how she had to think of it, because that’s what he was.

That’s what _it_ was.

As an upper-tier Gentek scientist who had survived Zeus’s murderous rampage the first go around, now a little over four years ago, Jury was not looking forward to meeting the subject of her nightmares face to face, even if it was supposed to be subdued the whole time. She’d seen the news feeds and the shaky YouTube candid shots. This thing was a whirlwind of death and unstoppable devastation, bulldozing through obstacles as if they didn’t exist, bolstered and restored by the multitudes they put in its path to stop it. Zeus was an act of god, a hurricane.

Her job was to put a hurricane in a tube.

She took a deep breath, adjusting her severe purple-red ponytail even tighter still, the familiar painful tug of her hair on her scalp was enough to keep her alert and focused. Jury paced a few more times back and forth before she halted before her keyboard once again and her fingers ghosted the keys. _This system first, and then these protocols in this order. One, then two, then three…_

It had to be perfect, and it had to be done fast, before the creature had a chance to recover. She chewed her nails down further still, wincing when she tasted blood and knowing from experience that typing was going to be painful for the next few days.

A loud bang jolted her from her reverie, her stomach bile rocketing to her throat in sudden almost mind-numbing terror before she realized that the team was coming through the door with a wheeled metal table. It had a very large steel container on it, and her fear tripled. The box that housed the creature was steaming, frozen with liquid nitrogen to keep the thing inside too cold and slow to be fully aware of its surroundings, while the combination of Blacktox and Bloodtox kept it from pulling itself together long enough to realize that it should want to escape.

The toxin would be pumped through a ventilator inside the containment chamber as well, and it would be kept the same temperature as the container on the table. Zeus would be weakened, cold, and unable to muster more than human strength. At least, that was the plan.

She sprang into action, trying not to think about the box and what was in it, running through programs rapid-fire and booting up the system.

“It’s up,” Jury told the faceless armored soldiers before they could get a word in at all. “Shove him inside and let’s get this over with.”

Surprisingly for Blackwatch grunts, they didn’t argue or even say anything. The largest one of the group took the lead and with his crew, they maneuvered the box into a small containment chamber, sealed the chamber, and released the mechanism on the box. Jury didn’t want to look up, didn’t want to see the black and red sludge ease its way from the box into a large pipe, seeking mindless animal escape from the pain of the Bloodtox and the numbing cold. She looked anyway.

When it ended up in the tube, the airlock sealed behind it and it spread out to explore its enclosure.

Trapped.

The door slammed shut on the nightmare, and all of the tension was sucked out of the room in a breath.

“Holy shit, did we… did we really just do it?” Said one of the troops as they all stood there for a moment in the silence that followed, stunned by their actual success with this endeavor. “We got Zeus! Holy shit!” He stared into the viewing port on the front, a small square of hyper-dense thick glass, watching. Zeus must have realized it had been contained, because the thing began thrash weakly against the walls, unable to work up any real strength or desperation.

The other scientists in the room, who had also been observing from the far walls wordlessly, put up a cheer with the troopers before shuffling back to their stations, beginning the work that would monitor the prison they had constructed and hopefully keep it impenetrable.

Dr. Jury couldn’t find it in her to celebrate. Her eyes were locked on that little window, watching the creature squirm in discomfort and shudder as it soaked up more Bloodtox, balling up into a little wad of viral matter before feebly extending outward like a striking snake to hit at the glass. It bounced off uselessly, but Jury knew now that it was aware enough to understand that the window would be the weakest part of this containment unit. It couldn’t do anything about it, but it must have some rudimentary senses and intelligence enough to determine that much.

However, it didn’t look like a thinking being; mostly it appeared like a disturbingly mobile and flexible pile of thick, black coagulated blood. The fact that it still had obvious awareness despite not looking so human anymore was troubling to her, somehow.

“What happens to it now?” Chrissy had asked it aloud, and it was mostly meant for herself, just rhetorical, but that didn’t stop someone from answering her, causing her stomach to sink further.

“We’re going to make use of it.” Said the largest of the men, taking off his helmet. He had bright green eyes and thick dark hair, and the black of his uniform made the shock of those eyes almost surreal. “Captain Vasquez,” he introduced himself, holding out a hand. He didn’t smile, but his introduction held a certain self-satisfaction.

She hesitated for the barest second before answering his handshake. She had no doubt he noticed.

“Dr. Chrissy Jury,” she replied politely, still reeling from having gone from caging a nightmarish man-eating horror to exchanging pleasantries with super soldiers. For some reason, his appraisal of her gave her worse chills than watching their captive.

“Ah, you’re the one that built the tank.” Captain Vasquez gestured to it, a soft thumping barely heard every ten seconds or so over the hissing and whirring of machinery as the creature within struck out at its boundaries.

“Along with my team,” She waved a hand to the other scientists in the room, six other people, who all returned greetings of various enthusiasm. Johansson just looked back at her, minutely shaking her head. “But I created the final design, yes.”

He was staring at her, unblinking and unabashed. The skin on the back of her neck prickled uncomfortably, hair standing on end, but she kept her expression solid as concrete upon her face. She knew better than to show weakness to a predator, and he was sizing her up in a way that made her compare him to one.

“Anyway, can’t just stand around. I’ve got work to do now that you’ve brought me a subject,” she told him pointedly.

“Of course.” He agreed, his eyes giving her a slow, familiar up-and-down. Her skin crawled. “I’ll try to bring in some more treats for you, if I ever wander across something worth bringing in after this one.”

One by one, the soldiers ceased their gloating, making faces and sneering at the contained thing, and filed out of the room. When the final soldier left, closing the door behind him, the scientists turned toward each other uneasily, then turned back to watch the fuel for their future night terrors doing its best to put up a fight.

“Johansson and I will take Alpha shift,” Jury, being the lead on this project, felt she should take control. “Miles, Parker, Stillman— go get some rest. Be back here at oh-nine-hundred to relieve us. Everyone else, get out. We’ll work out a monitoring schedule later.”

It was absolutely against protocol, but they obeyed her without question, following after the brutish field agents until Jury and Johansson were alone. They both turned back to the elephant in the room, watching it with weary interest.

“I don’t know how to feel about this,” Johansson admitted. They’d been working together for the past twelve years, and they knew each other better than most families did. They could sense the uneasiness radiating from one another in waves.

Jury didn’t answer, instead stepping toward the containment tube. Johansson took an instinctive step forward to stop her, then halted, a hand halfway extended, then dropped.

“Hey, buddy.” Chrissy said, watching it still at the sound of a human voice so close to the glass. “I’ll try not to let them be too mean to you, but you have to cooperate, alright?”

It flowed in on itself and twisted around like silly putty, pulling inward as though it were trying to make itself less of a target.

“I kind of feel sorry for it.” Johansson had approached while she’d been distracted.

“There’s no _kind of_,” Said Jury grimly.

“What is it doing? Wasn’t it a lot bigger a second ago?”

No sooner had the words left her mouth than the tightly compressed ball of Blacklight exploded outward with more power than it had been able to summon since they’d caught it, slamming into the first layer of bulletproof reinforced glass with enough force to cause a tiny hairline fracture. Before Chrissy could stop her, Johansson panicked and slapped her palm against the big red button on the side of the tank, flooding it with ice and a higher concentration of toxin.

The virus made a keen that was disturbingly high, and it succumbed to the extreme low temperatures until it could only manage a listless, syrupy shift of mass.

Chrissy yanked Johansson’s hand away from the mechanism, and the punishing icy blast sputtered out and stopped. After a few minutes of no movement, during which the two women let the adrenaline run its course, the temperature inside equilibrated and the virus began to move a little more, though cautiously. It didn’t approach the glass again.

“Is it alright?” Johansson asked, guiltily. She started forward a step, and the thing inside the tank flinched, drawing itself back up against the far edge and staying there, very still.

Neither of them spoke for a moment, watching it consider them until finally it uncoiled, gingerly lengthening out again to explore the tank.

“Call engineering. We need to get that glass replaced.”

* * *

Cross hesitated, raised his clenched fist, and let it drop back to his side. He took a deep breath, steeling himself. He had no illusions that this would go smoothly, but it had to be done. He had to fix this.

He raised his fist again and knocked on the door.

From just inside the door came a booming dog’s bark, and it made him jump a little. When had the Mercer family gotten a dog? He would have thought that would be something that Alex would have shared, and Cross ignored the confusing feeling of sadness that came when he realized Alex would have neglected to tell him.

“Franklin, calm down, boy, geez—” The door opened, and instead of who he expected, he was face-to-face with Mercer’s student, Jonesy, gripping the collar of a struggling golden retriever. The excited and hopeful look on Jonesy’s face slid away when he saw who was standing on their porch. They eyed each other for a second before Jonesy’s face crumpled and he slammed the door in his face.

That went about as well as expected.

A few seconds later, the door opened again, but this time with the expected occupant, Dana. Her eyes were red-rimmed and her hair was less artfully tousled and more tiredly so.

She looked surprised to see him for a second, and then she snarled and took a swing at him. He let it fall, and she punched surprisingly hard for how thin and dainty she appeared. His head snapped to the side, and he tasted blood. Everything felt slow, like the world around him was just a second behind where it was supposed to be.

God, he felt like shit.

“You son of— you— How _dare you_ show up after— I can’t fucking believe— How dare you come here! He trusted you! _I_ trusted you! He’s just a….” Her voice cracked and her eyes welled up for a second before Cross, amazed, watched her reinforce her spine with titanium and carry on berating him. “How fucking _dare you_? He is my baby brother and you are going to bring him back or I swear, Cross, I swear I’ll…”

Dana looked like she was getting ready to come at him again, all fire and spitting rage, and she looked so much like her brother that for just a second Cross expected claws. His hand snapped up habitually, catching an ill-advised blow before it could land clumsily across his jaw and break her hand. She cussed him for a solid minute with language that would shock a pirate before she swung at him again, wildly, eyes blinded by tears now. He caught her other hand too, until he held her still long enough that she broke down and began to cry in earnest.

She collapsed on herself, grabbed the front of his uniform and burying her face in it, her entire body shaking with the force of her sobs. “I _hate_ you! This is all… your… fault!” she was swiping at him weakly while she cried on him, and her long nails dug into his skin through his shirt.

“I know.” He breathed into her hair, wrapping an arm around her and pulling her close, rubbing a hand across her shaking back.

“We have to bring him h-home! Please, he’s got to be so scared, he’s got to believe you meant this all along!”

He heard more voices from within.

“—telling you, it’s him! I can’t believe he has the nerve—”

“We don’t know what happened yet—”

“What more do we need to know?!”

“Jonesy said he wasn’t even there, let’s just hear him out—”

The door was ripped open again and Cross observed familiar faces over Dana’s shoulder, Jonesy, Amir, Clara, and one young man he didn’t know. “Uh… hey.”

“Got anything to say for yourself, you mother fucker?!” Jonesy darted forward with hostile intent, but the boy Cross didn’t have a name for yet held him back.

“Jonesy, he wasn’t there! You said he wasn’t there!” The boy soothed him.

“He did this, I know he did!” Jonesy howled back, livid. “This is your fault! We trusted you!”

“Guys, stop it!” Clara ordered.

Jonesy shook with rage for a moment before he glanced at Dana. He set his jaw and pointed to Cross with a single finger. “You’ve got some fucking nerve.”

Clara reached up and gently pushed his hand down back to his side. “Come on, guys, we need to go inside.”

“You’re right.” Amir agreed. “We’re not doing this out here. The neighbors are going to talk.”

Cross wasn’t about to argue with that, so he carefully extricated himself from Dana’s iron grip and led her gently inside, following the rest of the group and their plus one.

“When did you get a dog?” he asked Dana quietly.

Her chin trembled again, but her voice was steadier. “It’s Jonesy’s. I… I didn’t feel safe.”

“He doesn’t like me,” Cross observed, while the dog’s lip curled up over its teeth at him and a low rumble sounded in its chest.

“He doesn’t like Alex, either.” She looked down at her feet. “When he started freaking out, we thought it was him.”

They arrived in the living room and Cross took a moment to soak in the surroundings. All this time and he’d never actually been inside the Mercer household. On one wall was a massive bookshelf, stuffed with books and maps and knickknacks, but one shelf held an assortment of precisely detailed little metal statuettes that looked as though they’d been carved from lumps of solid metal.

Alex had _hobbies_.

The group was seated on various plush chairs and pillows spread out on the floor, but the room wasn’t actually that large. The dog— Franklin, apparently— sidled up to his master and curled up on his feet, watching Cross’s every move with big brown eyes.

“Fuck, it’s cold in here,” Cross noted, shivering a little. Dana, who was wearing a tank-top and pajama shorts, just glared at him, so he turned to the new kid. “And who are you?” He leaned against the wall tiredly, rubbing his arms through his uniform sleeves to warm up.

The unnamed boy jumped a little at being unexpectedly addressed, but gave a nervous little wave. “I’m Griffin.” He said, running a hand through sandy-colored hair.

“Griffin? The one from your math class that you won’t shut up about?” Cross pried, turning to Jonesy, who stared at the floor.

Clara answered him, her voice almost timid. “He knows everything. He and Jonesy were at the diner when they took him.”

That announcement hung in the air like humming of a struck bell.

“Did he call before?” Cross turned to Dana. “Leave a note, maybe? Any information we can get will be useful.”

Dana’s face crumpled again, and her shoulders began to shake as she unfolded something he hadn’t even noticed she was holding. On a wrinkled restaurant napkin, there was a hastily scrawled handful of words.

_Blackwatch here. Stay safe. Love you._

Cross felt his throat tighten, because Alex might have been one for anger, but declarations of love were more often shown than said with words. He must have been scared, given no other choice but to comply. Cross figured he knew how Vasquez’s team had managed that.

He forced himself into action, because sentiment was important, but it didn’t save lives. “Alright,” he started, “Let’s sort this sorted out quickly, because I am supposed to be several states away right now taking out a hive. My team is in on this and they’re covering for me, but sometime within the next forty-eight hours someone is going to notice I am not there, so we need to wrap this up before I get caught.”

“Why should we care if you get caught?” Jonesy asked angrily. Griffin, for all of his passivity earlier, gave a sharp nod in agreement. Amir just bit his lip, upset.

Clara didn’t move, aside from the hand that was rubbing circles on Dana’s back comfortingly. She didn’t have anything to add to Jonesy’s proclamation, but Cross noticed that she didn’t quite disagree, either.

He felt a headache blooming behind his eyes, which was excellent timing, he had to say. And why was it so _fucking cold _in here?

“Because if Blackwatch has Alex, and I get kicked out of Blackwatch, I can’t help him.” He threw up his hands. “Having a man on the inside only works when your man is still on the inside. Before Blackwatch even knew he was here, I put my career, my freedom, and my life at risk to help Alex stay under the radar. So could you chill with the fucking hostility already and let me fix this?” He began pacing the room as a few of them hung their heads. “I dug into some restricted areas and I know where they’re keeping him. He’s safe, for now. It’s been a few days and they haven’t approved any tests on him yet, and won’t still for a few more, if I know Blackwatch bureaucracy.”

Everyone seemed to droop a little in relief.

Clara curled in on herself, leaning on her knees and shaking. “Thank god, he’s alive. Thank _god_.”

Dana looked like she wanted to cry again, but pulled herself together. “So, Robert, what’s the plan?” She was the only one who could call him by his first name and make it not sound weird.

The headache was getting really hard to ignore, but Cross stuffed down his discomfort and soldiered on. This was more important.

The distraction caused him to waver just a second too long, and Amir spoke up before he could say anything. “Captain, what can we do to help?”

“Nothing.” Dana cut in before he or Clara could speak. “You guys are too young for this. You can’t come.”

“No way!” Jonesy leapt to his feet, and Griffin grabbed his arm. Franklin the dog jumped up as well, confused but still growling in his master’s defense. “You’re barely older than we are!”

“Jonesy, please.” Griffin soothed. “Just let him talk.”

“We’re not just going to sit here while—”

“Yes, actually _you are_, so sit the fuck down.”

It was the voice Cross normally reserved for his hardened Wisemen team, a potent and assured authority backed by the titanic confidence that his word was law. The boys withered under it, and Cross felt hot shame for a minute, but he did what he had to do. “Dana’s right. If you guys stick your heads into this mess, you’re going to get killed, and the less people I have to focus on getting out alive, the less people we’re likely to lose. Dana and Clara can come. You guys are just gonna have to sit tight.”

Jonesy looked between them for a shred of hope. “We have to do _something!”_

_Alex, I wish you were here, if only so you could see how much of a shit these people give about you._

“No, I’m sorry, but you can’t. Look, I appreciate what you’re trying to do, and it’s honestly really touching that you guys are willing to risk your lives, but even if I somehow managed to get a whole team of people across the quarantine undetected, and found a way to keep you safe in the meantime, I sure as hell wouldn’t be able to smuggle you into HQ without raising all kinds of hell. And if I— _when_ I get Alex out of there, he’s might be in bad shape. The last thing he needs is a big group of untrained, unprotected civilians hanging off of him and looking edible.”

Jonesy dropped back to the sofa. “This is bullshit,” he snapped, obviously casting about for a rebuttal. “He wouldn’t hurt us.”

“Oh yeah?” Cross crossed his arms across his chest. “Tell me again, how many surgeries did it take before you could bend your wrist after what he did to it?”

Jonesy scowled, opening his mouth to snarl at him.

“Can you hold a rifle?” Cross interrupted him before he could speak, and it hadn’t been what they expected to hear, because they all paused. “I’m serious, a real rifle, not what your daddy uses to shoot deer.”

“_Captain_!” Clara looked appalled. “You’re not really going to—”

He held up a finger to silence her. “Can any of you fire an automatic weapon comfortably enough to land a headshot with reasonable consistency? Because if you’re not Alex Mercer, that’s usually what it takes to kill a walker, and they’re the _easy_ targets. They won’t have guns to fire back at you.”

Jonesy glared at him, but Griffin had his hand, keeping him from leaping off of the sofa to start in on him again. Amir was looking at him thoughtfully.

The headache flared and Cross winced, reaching up to rub his eyes distractedly.

“We can do something that isn’t fighting.” Amir suggested.

“What are you planning to do? Because if you can’t fight and you’re not ready to take a life when push comes to shove, you’re going to be in the way. Don’t forget, Manhattan has been teeming with Redlight for almost four years now. There will be _monsters, _the likes of which none of you have ever seen. And I hate to say it, but if this goes poorly, your tutor will be one of them.”

Something pulsed behind his eyes, and Cross missed their reactions when he dug his palms into their sockets hard enough to make him see spots of light for a second. He took a slow, grounding breath, forcing through the fog that was settling heavily around his brain. It was starting to get a little suffocating.

“Are you okay?” Griffin asked quietly.

Cross paid him little mind, moving to roughly massage his temples and wishing they could just fucking move on, because they had a lot more to cover and this wasn’t getting them anywhere.

Dana stepped in again, buying him a moment more to get himself together. “I wish we could let you come.” She said bitterly. “I wish we had a hundred more people in on this, but this is _real. _Real monsters, real dangers. Real claws to tear you in half with, real viruses to kill you and bring you back as something else to kill your friends, too.” She lowered her voice, meeting their gazes steadily and trying to impress upon them the importance of her words. “There are threats here that are worse than just death. Trust me, I've seen it, and I wish to god I hadn’t.”

“B-but…” Jonesy crumbled.

Amir just looked sad. “I understand, but… You can’t just expect us to wait around and let him get dissected.”

Cross deflated. “I’m not expecting you to let anything happen,” he answered, when he finally found his words again. “Except for you to let me save him. I don’t want him to get... Please believe me when I tell you that this isn’t what I wanted, not at all.”

He was having a hard time thinking straight. Why in the name of all that was holy _was he so fucking cold?_

“Really.” Said Dana flatly.

“I mean it, he’s… Alex is my friend, even if I haven’t been a very good one.” Was he getting a little light-headed? Was that the room starting to spin, or was he spinning? ”Even though we met under the actual worst circumstances on the planet, and… And, uh…” Cross shook his head, again losing his train of thought for a moment. He was shivering even harder now, his whole body wracked with tremors. “Even if he almost ate me on more than one occasion.”

Griffin choked in alarm, and Amir laughed a little manically. “Yeah, welcome to the party, pal.”

“It’s not...” Cross said distantly, and his voice came through to his own ears as though it was underwater. “It’s— It’s really not as bad as I… uh…” He put a hand to his head, and his vision blurred. “As I...”

Amir frowned. “Captain?”

“I’m...” He tried again, and he couldn’t remember what he’d been about to say, but an unpleasant realization dawned on him at the same time that something gray and foggy started to close in on the edges of his vision. “Oh, _shit.._.”

“Captain, you look a little pale. Are you feeling okay? What’s—“ It was Clara speaking, but he lost track of her words halfway through.

“Cross. _Cross!”_

“—alright? Hey! Come on, say some—”

“—going on, he’s burning up, somebody get—”

The world grew colorless and indistinct, and something in the back of his head was buzzing louder than whoever was talking. There was a dark shape standing in front of him, and Cross swayed on his feet, tried to take a step forward, then stumbled heavily. He felt arms catch him, but he didn’t know who it was. His heart was a harsh, erratic drumming in his ears.

He was dimly aware of trying to move, pulling free of the hands that kept him upright and trying to go somewhere, and then falling to his knees and heaving. His stomach was empty, so nothing came up, but it was forceful enough to hurt. When it stopped, someone tried to pick him up again, to move him. There were cool hands on his face, and then they were gone.

Someone was talking, saying a word over and over. A name, maybe? Who were they talking to…?

It could have been seconds or hours before there was a sharp pain in his thigh, and a warm relief spread through his muscles like molasses. Everything swam slowly back into focus, and someone was snapping their fingers in front of his face.

It was loud, he realized, and he flinched the next time they did it.

“Is he awake?” Jonesy looked worried over Amir’s shoulder, who was standing pretty close. Cross took a minute to figure out where he was, propped up bonelessly in the same chair Amir had been in just moments ago. Was it moments, though, or longer?

Amir snapped his fingers again, then waved a hand in front of his face, watching his eyes track it. “You alright?” He asked, reaching a hand forward and checking his pulse.

“...What day is it?” Cross wanted to know, embarrassed and still kind of out of it. “Is it Thursday?”

“Uh, it’s Sunday, sir.” Said Griffin, looking between them with alarm.

“Explains a lot,” he slurred, fumbling for his pockets.

Dana stopped him, holding up an empty syringe with just traces of the red fluid inside. Cross panicked for a moment, wondering if this meant he’d run out, but then his sluggish brain caught up, and he realized that someone must have just used it on him. “Is this what you’re looking for?” She asked. “I sincerely hope so, because Amir found it in your bag and just stabbed you with it.”

“Cross, what was that?” Jonesy demanded, a little grey in the face. “You scared the shit out of us!”

“Are you alright?” Amir asked again, a little more insistently. “Sorry, I don’t know what I just injected you with, but your pulse was doing something really weird and you wouldn’t snap out of it and I didn’t know what else to do.”

“No, that was it.” Cross admitted, a little sheepish. “Thanks, Amir. It’s required for the… the enhancements.” He coughed, realized he was still freezing, then that someone had put a blanket on him. How embarrassing. “I guess I don’t need to tell you what it looks like when I miss a dose.”

“Enhancements? Are you… augmented, somehow?” Clara asked, frowning.

“Are you like, a super-soldier?” Jonesy asked him, his face lighting up when Cross gave a shrug, even though seconds ago he’d been furious as all hell. “Man, that is so _cool.”_

This was why Jonesy was his favorite.

“Is this going to be a problem?” Asked Dana, coolly and astutely, because of course this wouldn’t be enough to wig her. She lived with Alex, after all, and that guy had more issues than the New York Times.

“No.” He answered, swallowing down nausea. “I don’t usually need it more than once a week, or when I get a limb pulled off or something. I guess with everything that’s happened this week, I… I just forgot.” They all exchanged looks, and he didn’t like that at all.

“Are you _sure_ you’re alright, Cross?” Amir asked him a third time, and now that Cross looked, the poor kid was shaking, his eyes a little too wide and his face ashen.

“Yeah, thanks.” He patted him on the shoulder. “Good call, by the way.” He considered standing up again, but his legs were still a little wobbly, so he held off. It wouldn’t do to collapse in front of them again like some kind of wilting flower.

“Captain, when was the last time you ate? Or slept?” Clara said, still eyeing him with concern.

About eighteen hours before Alex had been taken, so… probably four days ago, now? He knew from past experience that he probably looked like hell, but he couldn’t do anything about it, and it didn’t help that he hadn’t slept, hadn’t eaten. There just wasn’t the time, right now. “Not that long ago, it’s fine.” He waved her away.

“Oh,” Dana snapped at him. “Are you _fine_, Captain? Then stand up, go on.” When he glared at her, making no move to do so, she shook her head, turning away. “Asshole.”

“I’m ordering food,” said Amir decisively, wandering off to find his phone. “We’ll all feel a little better if we eat, anyway.”

“Seriously, it’s not as bad as it looked, I promise. It wasn’t the first time and it won’t be the last, and this is beside the point. We should be worried about Alex.”

“We can keep talking, just eat something and at least sleep for a few hours after, okay?” Clara negotiated.

“I’m not _delicate_, fuck’s sake. Cut it out.” He growled at her. “Seriously.”

“Don’t talk to her like that.” Dana said, dangerously low and quiet.

“I. Am. _Fine_.”

Griffin looked him up and down, as though he expected him to just fall over at any moment. “Sir, are you—”

“What part of _super soldier _don’t you get? I recover fast. It takes _a lot_ to hurt me and triple that to kill me, I promise.” Cross knew that very well, because it was frustrating that no matter what kind of a situation he found himself in, he just _didn’t die. _It wasn’t fair_._ “Back in his day, Alex could pick up a taxi and throw it at a helicopter like it was _nothing_.”

Dana sighed. Jonesy looked surprised, then delighted.

“I went hand-to-hand with him and I got _this close—” _Cross made a little gesture to emphasize, “—to killing him, but not before he _punched me in the face _half a dozen times. Do you have any idea what that’s like? Because he weighed about as much as a commercial airliner at the time. So if you don’t stop trying to coddle me, I’m going to get pissed off.”

Jonesy’s enthusiasm would not be deterred.

“How does it work? Is it like how Mr. Mendel works? Can you shapeshift? Because that would be so _badass_.”

He snorted. “No, I can’t shapeshift. No claws. Unlike Alex, I’m still—” he considered it. “—mostly human? Maybe half-and-half. It’s a bastardized version of the virus that’s burning its way through Manhattan. That’s honestly all they’ve told me about it in like half a century. I guess I just never asked.”

“_Half of a_— Captain, when did you get this done to you?!” Jonesy looked a little worried for a minute. “Were you a _child_? Because that’s seriously fucked up.”

Cross couldn’t tell them, because he honestly didn’t remember. He realized now that this should worry him.

“How old are you?” Amir wanted to know.

_Well, shit. _He was obviously still feeling the effects of his little episode, because he had never once in his long life let his age slip out like that. He cringed. “A little over sixty.”

“Oh my god, you’re _so old!” _Jonesy stopped like something had just hit him. “You guys,” he whispered conspiratorially, leaning in with a grin. “You guys! He’s an old captain with super strength from New York. Guys, he’s _Captain_ _America_!” He declared.

_“Captain Ebola.”_ Amir snorted.

“Hilarious. Go away, now.”

They did wait just a little while until food was delivered, and then Clara forced two whole orders at him, ignoring his annoyed protests. He surprised himself by eating both of them.

“So what’s your plan?” Dana wanted to know.

He’d had some time to think it over. “Alex is going to be on one of the upper floors of Gentek’s new research and development facility. It’s where they keep their subjects. And at the very least we’ve got seventy-two hours, maybe a little more, before they start running tests.”

“We’re not letting that happen.” Said Clara with determination. The boys just watched sullenly, but they didn’t interrupt, knowing that further dilatory remarks would only get in the way of their planning, and further delay Alex’s rescue.

“I’m going to _try,_” he emphasized, “to spring him in a way that makes it look like he not only did it himself without any help, but makes enough of a mess that they will consider it not worth trying to take him again. I’m going to destroy the Blacklight samples if there are any. I’ll have him disguise himself as the captain of the team that took him and we’ll sneak him out, if we can.”

“Will anyone buy that?” Amir raised a hand. “He’s not a very good liar.”

Dana laughed out loud.

“It’ll work.” Cross assured. “When I get him out, and after—” He hesitated, swallowing. He still had a pretty bad headache, and he probably needed another shot, but he refrained from doing anything about it yet. “After he restores himself, I need someone to get him out of the city. I won’t be able to get away from Blackwatch command for a while after I pull this off; it’ll look too suspicious. That’s where Clara and Dana come in. I’ll have a Quarantine cleared transport waiting with one of my Wisemen to pilot, and all you need to do is get him across the bay at that point.”

“They won’t stop us?”

“I obviously have clearance to leave,” Cross said. “You’ll be using my codes, and Vasquez’s. There’s going to be a lot of chaos after Gentek goes down. They’ll send all of their attention there, so it’s possible you might not even need them.”

Dana stopped him. “What about Mia?”

“The runner?” He blinked. “What about her?” Everyone else looked equally confused, so he guessed that they hadn’t been informed about the runner situation yet.

Dana’s face could have been made of stone. “She was just a kid. I don’t think she was dangerous. I’m not leaving her with Blackwatch.”

_Jesus, a kid. _It was a hard blow to take. He just didn’t have the energy to process it right now or the time to argue with her. “If she’s still alive, we’ll get her out, too, if we can.” He hesitated a long moment. “But I’m not making any promises. I have to prioritize Alex. The consequences of letting Gentek keep him are too far-reaching for us to compromise this.”

“Then I’m definitely going in with you.” She declared. “I’ll get Mia. It’s my…” she balled her hands into fists. “It’s my fault she’s there.” And Cross recognized the expression on her face, could hear what she wasn’t saying. She wanted so _badly _to be with him instead, rescuing her brother. But she was taking responsibility, paying for her sins.

This was her price. He understood.

“I’ll be fine in the transport by myself,” Clara added. To her credit, she didn’t even look afraid. “I’ll have your pilot park it on a high-rise and close the doors, play getaway car. I can also keep contact with the teams and coordinate everyone, if you can get me a map of the building.”

Cross was a fan of any plan that kept Clara out of the line of fire. “Okay, fine, that’s a good idea. But Dana, how on earth do you think you’re going to be able to do this? You’re not exactly low-profile.”

“I survived a Red Zone for months, back when Greene was still running around, and it’ll be easier for me to get into a research facility than a bunch of twenty-year-olds. I can look like a scientist well enough to sneak past some dumbass Gentek goons. I’ve done it before, and it’s not just a base, right? They’ve got labs, so they’re bound to have other staff. I’ll just have to take a card from my brother’s deck and go in disguise. I can take care of myself, trust me.”

Cross made a mental note to scold the security teams later, but their lax protocol might actually be of use to him for now. He still wasn’t sure he could allow it. “You’re his sister. If you got killed out there, he would eat me alive. Literally.”

“So then do your job and don’t slow me down.” She retorted. When Jonesy yawned, she checked her watch. “It’s getting late. Stay here and sleep for a few hours, and we’ll head up to New York when you wake.”

“We should be going _now_.” Cross retorted. “I’m not going to waste time—"

“Shut up. Just _shut up_!” Dana jumped to her feet. “I know a lot about you, Cross, don’t forget that I still have your file. I know you have a heightened metabolism, and that means you need to eat _a lot_. And whenever you’re not working, you sleep, also a lot. And I’m sure you hadn’t done either in days, right?” She accused, and he looked away for just a second, caught. “Fucking pull yourself together! Stop acting like you’re the one who lost him, because you’re not! _I am!”_

Amir was visibly uncomfortable, and Griffin looked like he very much wanted to go home. Jonesy just looked thoughtful, petting his dog without a word.

“Dana,” Clara said softly, “Maybe—”

Dana ignored her, furious. “_You _didn’t lose him, you _threw him away _as if he never mattered in the first place! I _hate_ that I have to do this with you, but I’m going to, because you’re his best chance. If you’re not at _your_ best when we do this, people are going to die. Cross, I would love to go _right now, _don’t fucking think for a second that I am alright just sitting here, while they could be—” her voice cracked, and she took a breath. “But we have to be careful about this, and we have to do it right the first time. So stop wallowing in your self-pity and get me my brother back.”

Clara put a hand on his arm. “Cross, she’s right. You’re still really pale. Stay here, and we’ll leave in the morning. You said we have time.”

Chastised, Cross nodded, not looking up. Dana huffed and stomped off into the kitchen to cool off, and Clara followed her with one last concerned glance back at him.


	12. Chapter 12

Chrissy Jury had her back to the wall and her hands were balled into fists, pressed against the cold steel. She tried to pretend those were the only sensations in the whole world right now while she watched the unlucky scientist who’d been chosen to extract samples from Zeus.

The analyst took a minute to compose herself, then she cursed under her breath and shakily returned her hands to the controls. Inside the tank, the pile of black and red sludge spasmed and flinched as it had small pieces of its mass clipped away by high-end precision cutting tools.

When the last sample was removed it made a small squeak of distress, but it didn’t sound like any animal or creature she’d ever heard in her life. Jury watched the operator’s eyes tighten minutely as it did so, her hands faltering for the briefest second as she extracted the viral matter for processing. This was a much larger amount, taken to be frozen and retained in vaults a dozen stories beneath their shoes.

In the meantime, the virus resumed its normal activity of sloughing around the enclosure, tapping away at the glass and searching for weakness, but between the new Bloodtox formula and the extreme cold, it couldn’t manage much before it tired itself out and balled itself into a corner like a snake.

She’d noticed the day previously, but now it had two beady… well, somethings. Not eyes, certainly, but she was pretty sure they were some kind of sensory organs, not as complex as eyes but probably useful all the same. Maybe they were for reading heat signatures? She thought she’d read something like that in the debriefing, and made a note to check on it later.

“That’ll be all, Ms. Julian, thank you.” The General in the room said to the operator, who sagged in relief and dragged herself back to her normal station. She propped up her logbook and went about recording the environment inside the tank, as she did every half hour or so; humidity, temperature, toxin concentration, relative subject viscosity, oxygen content, nitrogen content, whatever she could think of. It was a familiar ritual, almost soothing to listen to her mutter as her pen scratched smoothly against the pages, and Jury wasn’t one to begrudge anyone their coping mechanisms.

She did begrudge the general, who as an asshole. All of the women in this room had Ph.Ds. They were _doctors, _not _misses. _

General McIntyre ordered his research team to take the samples to the upper floor labs, leaving those few members of the containment crew standing around in silence, eyes downcast.

When they’d first caught the Blacklight virus, there had been a mixed air of triumph and unease between them, because they never once thought they would be able to actually subdue and contain Zeus. In a way they all had expected that, at any moment, it would break free in a flurry of tentacles and claws to rip them to shreds. Now, however, both feelings had faded into a shared kind of wretchedness. None of them looked up as it got its second wind and began tapping anew at its cage, pitifully. It would tire again soon, and the cycle would repeat itself every five minutes or so.

It started making that noise again, one that they’d only heard a few times from it: a soft, broken humming, almost a melody, but not quite. It couldn’t keep it up long enough to form any kind of coherent tune, but that didn’t seem to stop it from trying.

None of them had any idea what Zeus was trying to accomplish with it, but for some reason, none of them speculated out loud. It just seemed… private, somehow.

“I just—” Johansson wrung her hands, breaking the stillness. “I didn’t think it...” She trailed off helplessly, and she didn’t have to say more.

After a long moment, Jury nodded her head. “Back to your station.”

* * *

There were no real thoughts, but there were feelings, and it felt… something.

The virus didn’t really have the words for it yet, because it didn’t have any words at all, but after the something came something else, another feeling, and it was only after both of those feelings had lessened somewhat that it could remember the words.

_Hunger. Pain. _

It didn’t like those words, it decided.

There wasn’t sight either, nor smell, not like before. It couldn’t seem to think like it knew it should be able to. Everything felt stunted, blurred, dragged down by its own weight. Then there was a blur of movement, some of it coming from the virus and some of it belonging to something else, and after the hunger and pain came a warm relief, a satisfaction, a fullness. It wasn’t enough, not nearly enough, but it helped the words come back, and then it found that it had new words to describe what it felt, and the world around it.

_Darkness. Cold. Afraid._

It didn’t like those words, either.

Eventually, though, it became aware of more than just those words. Finally came a clarity, and with it, a sense of self, _I _and _me. _That helped the most.

Now it could remember that it was _in _and it wanted _out. _

It—he—

He wanted out.

_He wanted out!_

_Calm, now. _Something murmured to him, more of a general impression of soothing than actual words. _Easy, my child. They will come for you, you will see. Sing for them, they will come. _

He didn’t know who that was, or who they were supposed to be, or what any of that meant. The other presence was almost stronger than him right now, but it let him do the moving, the deciding, so he was only afraid of it most of the time.

He (and what did that mean, to be a _he _and not an _it) _uncoiled himself, feeling his way along a chamber he could barely recognize despite having explored it over a hundred times since he was brought here. Where was he before? Was it warm? He couldn’t remember, but maybe he could, if he had the space to think.

_Out. _He felt, rather than heard. He knew meanings, but words were hard. _Have to get out. Have to get home, back to her. _

Her?

Who was she?

Beginning to investigate the space again, he tried to dig into walls as best as he could when he was met with barriers he could not simply push through, trying to learn the shape of it even as the memories refused to take root in his brain.

He kept on with his study, intent to ignore the discomfort, feeling out until he met the slight lip of an edge, a change of material. It was not as cold as the metal walls of his cage; it was smoother, and through it he could feel vibrations, movement.

_Consume, _he knew, suddenly. _Must be more, become many, grow…_

He knew he had to figure out where and who and what he was. He had to see, to know what there was that he might eat.

A familiar shape was within reach, so he dug around in the core of his being until something felt right. It was painful, shifting around mass like this, and hard to remember what he was supposed to do even while he was doing it. After he rearranged some cells, he pushed this new component to the surface of his body. Eyes, of a sort. That’s what eyes probably were anyway, he thought. Sometimes he tried to make eyes and made other things, things that were useless but maybe meant something, once.

When he opened his new eyes, none of his newly rediscovered words changed, but at least now he could add a few new ones.

_Alone. Trapped. Confused._

He hated his new dictionary.

So now he could see, for a while, until the cold would creep into these delicate organs and shut them down forcefully. But now he could see, and there was the face of… of a woman? Of food?

Was this her? Was this who he had to return to, at all cost?

She had dark red hair, or maybe it was purple or blue, he couldn’t distinguish with these eyes. Black rectangular-framed glasses were perched upon her nose. He imagined he could feel the woman’s warmth, and sense the cells dividing in her skin and in her blood, that might serve to heal, to regenerate, to spread. As close as she was, even through three panes of thick glass, he could see the pores on her skin, the sweat gathering at her hairline. He watched her pupils expand and contract with tiny motions, fascinated, imagined he could see the blood running through the vessels in her eyes.

Her eyes were dark, and that wasn’t right. That wasn’t her. 

He noticed at last that her mouth was moving, she— she was talking, saying something he couldn’t hear. 

He was vaguely aware that the air was warming up, still bitingly cold, but giving him new access. He had been sending signals through his body, commands into motion, but the cold affected the cells, and those signals had all arrived at the wrong times, out of sequence, or not at all. But now, as he thawed, he felt what passed for neural connections flickering to life, restructuring into something that might be able to hear and understand. He focused, had to know—

Alex. His name was Alex. He remembered fragments, but she was still talking, and he tried so hard to listen through all of the glass and metal, and the cold bit down on him still but not so harshly as before. He pressed against the glass as flat as he could, trying to see her better, to hear her words. 

“—gotta stop taking potshots at the glass, Zeus. I’m sorry, I know you want out, but I can’t help you yet, and if you keep trying to escape they’ll keep hitting you with the ice.”

Someone else spoke, too far away for him to see but close enough to hear. “What did you give it this time?”

“A rat, from one of the labs downstairs. It seemed to like that better than the fish.”

“Prefers mammals, probably.”

“That’s what I thought, too.”

“Is it looking at us?”

It got quiet.

Curiosity got the better of him and Alex scooted forward, pressing closer to the glass but not striking, not yet. He wanted to hear her speak some more, her gentleness a balm for his raw nerves. 

“Hey, little guy. Easy, it’s alright. Just stay calm, okay? And this will all be—"

She halted mid-sentence, whipping around, and the virus could just make out dark shapes entering in the far corner of the room, moving toward them. The woman braced against the tank for a moment, giving him only a view of the back of her lab coat, and the fine weave of cotton that it was composed of, before she was yanked roughly away. 

“No, it can’t take anymore! It has to eat more— Stop, wait— you’re going to kill it!”

Alex didn’t hear the reply as his mass twisted in sudden fear, something he was experiencing a lot in the past few days. He felt himself backtracking, oozing into a corner and trying to retreat as far as he could, trying to get away, but there was nowhere to go and he was still so cold. He tried to harden his exterior membranes against the sour feeling that hung in the air, that didn’t bite like the cold did but ached with sustained, repeated trauma, but it hurt familiar, smelled familiar, and was almost worse than the cold.

“What the fuck are you doing? Ice it first or it’ll get out when you open the airlocks.”

There was another sudden blast of coolant, and then he remembered one of his words again, _pain. _Those connections and memories slipped away like water through a sieve, and again it knew only cold.

* * *

Dr. Jury stared at the cigarette that hung limply between her calloused fingertips and bitten-down fingernails, trying to parse what she was feeling.

This thing, it was an atrocity of human engineering, a man-eating man-made viral abomination, a crime against God and everything good in the world, and the human race was better off if it was as far away from them as possible.

And yet, she couldn’t get the image of it cringing away from the Blackwatch soldiers out of her head, couldn’t stop replaying the sight over and over. She couldn’t escape from the memory of the way it twitched and flailed when they flooded the chamber with coolants to take it down so far below freezing that it would have caused severe and irreparable damage to a human within about five seconds.

And how it had _screamed_.

She didn’t know what the right thing to do was, anymore. When they’d given her this project, tasked her with containing a god, she had been a little afraid, but more excited and honored. She had jumped head first into the design of the containment pod, dancing and weaving around members of her team while she directed them to construct her masterpiece. She pulled up the girls from the lower labs, her trusted and brilliant and under-appreciated biologists, engineers, virologists, chemists. She gave them the chance, and they’d exceeded everyone’s expectations by miles. Their little pet project got funding, and she got more materials, more engineers, and they all answered to her.

To her, it was a dream come true.

She had been in her element in ways that she didn’t know she could be, until she’d gotten the call one afternoon that they were going to apprehend the subject, and to prepare the chamber, and the sweetness of her hard-earned success turned bitter in her mouth.

In that moment, it finally struck home that she was going to be holding it captive, like a zoo animal, a thing that had real sapience, perhaps more. It was mostly a pile of virus, like old monsters from movies like The Blob and The Thing had a horrific, world-ending love-child. But she’d seen what Blackwatch deemed acceptable for the news, and what was on websites for about twelve seconds before they were taken down by their algorithms. It had a human shape, an old Gentek researcher she vaguely remembered passing in the halls a few times, when she had wandered into the upper floors on errands. His face was a blur in her memory, and none of the cameras ever got close enough to catch it in detail. She didn’t remember the face of the monster, the real one.

The thing that it was, the Blacklight virus, had been created as the final defiance of a madman before his death. He had engineered the virus that consumed him, reconstructed him, and was born from his still-warm carcass. Immediately afterward, it had been attacked by Gentek employees, Blackwatch, before it had a chance to even register that it was alive.

She remembered being told off-hand by one of the Wisemen, an elite squad rumored to have met an unfortunate end at Zeus’s hungry claws, that it really thought it was still human at first. It really thought it was Alex Mercer, who had a sister, who had a doctorate. A researcher, a brother, a graduate, a man, it was never any of these things. It never got the chance; engineered by a human, created by and born of humans, and then subsequently damned by them. It was never allowed to even try to be anything more than a monster, but the scientists and its _torturers_, they had a choice, and they chose to be monsters.

Since they’d lost track of it, they expected it to pop up all over the world, leaving behind a trail of outbreaks and devastation and swathes of missing persons, never found. Instead, they’d gotten radio silence. It was laying low. It wanted to be left alone, didn’t want to cause more trouble, maybe. It had been years of relative peace, and they’d come after it anyway.

The toxin, the cold… They would brutalize this thing, and she was not only to bear witness, but it was her doing.

“You know Chrissy, for a woman of science, you sure do engage in a lot of behaviors that are bad for your health.” Johansson had been coming up the sidewalk for a while, a few cans of soda under one arm and a small takeout box of Chinese food clutched in her manicured hands.

The cigarette had burned itself out a long time ago, and she ground it beneath her heel and reached into her pocket for another. “Like what?” She asked, barely acknowledging her otherwise.

Johansson plopped herself down beside her, handing over one of the sodas – ginger ale, her favorite – and deftly flicked open the Styrofoam container to reveal steaming hot lo-mein and orange chicken, also her favorite. “Like this,” Johansson said, smugly, handing over a cheap plastic fork, because both of them were dreadful at using chopsticks. Her face fell a little, the lines around her eyes and mouth growing soft and fond before she continued, “and blaming yourself for things you can’t help.”

She was being pitied, but she couldn’t bring herself to be upset with her best friend for it.

“It’s not just that I couldn’t help it, or couldn’t stop it. I did this, Lindsay. I actively made this happen.” Chrissy’s hand stilled, the prongs of her fork inches away from the warm bites of chicken that now felt a little less appetizing. “I built this thing. I gave them the means, and I was the one who helped them figure out how to incapacitate it, to tear it apart.”

“It would have been someone else if it wasn’t you,” she replied. “And it would have been at the mercy of someone who couldn’t give less of a shit about its comfort.”

“I feel like I shouldn’t care,” Chrissy retorted to a jab that didn’t exist, but she couldn’t help it. Her voice was sharper than she meant it to be, but it came out of her all the same. “Maybe I shouldn’t. This thing is a virus, they aren’t even classified as living things. And I know it’s responsible for thousands of deaths at its own hands, and even more from the collateral of its little terf war with Redlight… but those were the first weeks of its life. This thing is younger than my niece.” She felt like vomiting. “It’s a _baby_. I can’t watch this,” She said, setting down the cutlery without ever having taken a bite. “I can’t be a part of this. This isn’t what I signed up for, it isn’t right.”

She was quiet for a moment, and they both gazed up at the light-polluted night sky and pretended the blinking lights of the buildings around them were stars.

“You’re a good person, Chrissy.” Lindsay put a hand over hers, and then set down the food and took both of her hands, gentle and reassuring. “There is no one else on this planet with more kindness in them than you. Maybe it had to be you, maybe you’re here for a reason. Maybe it needs compassion, even if it doesn’t deserve it.”

“That’s the thing,” Chrissy looked down at their entwined fingers, and squeezed. “I’ve been doing a bit of thinking, a bit of digging, and… I think maybe it _does.”_

Their heads snapped up in unison as a klaxon blared within the building, towards the direction of the bio-labs, and the bright interior fluorescent lights flickered off, replaced by the dull red glow of emergency lighting.

Everything stilled within her, the cascading dominoes of thought and reason falling into place, locking into a pattern that they were always meant to be. Unbreakable.

“Evacuate per procedure.” Jury didn’t look back at her friend as she started to run. “Go!”

* * *

“Ares” was in position.

“Alright,” Came a woman’s voice over his radio. “Generators destroyed. Now that the back-ups have kicked in, they’ll divert power to containment of samples and essential systems. The chaos will buy us time. I’m going to find Mia.”

“Good work, Hestia,” someone else said, a little distant. He adjusted the wireless earpiece, fussing around it for a second until it was in a more comfortable position.

“Am I coming through?” Cross asked.

“We read you A-Okay, Ares.” Said Clara, her voice tinny as it buzzed over his comm. “Persephone on standby. Sending coordinates.”

Cross had to shake a head at the dramatics of it all. “The team is going through the lower levels clearing out civilians, so I guess that leaves me to find Zeus.” Cross said, bemusedly wondering why Clara had insisted on the codenames. She’d given Jonesy and Amir so much shit for it, and now he was never going to let her live it down.

One of the Wisemen chimed in, “this is gonna be so awesome, I've always wanted to stage a _coup!”_

Reza, his second-in-command, spoke up. “The Wisemen are on standby, Cap. Let us know when you find the samples.”

“You better find him,” warned Dana. “You’d better.”

“I will, don’t worry. Ares out.”

“Good luck, Captain.” Said Clara.

Cross took off down the hall, gun lowered but ready, his breath coming in light huffs in the face of his Blackwatch helmet. He turned a corner, and something hit him in the face.

He wasn’t winded or hurt at all by the blow, but it surprised him enough that he staggered a few steps before rounding on his attacker. He blinked, then straightened up, slowly.

The culprit was a woman he might have seen at Gentek once or twice, one of the upper-tier researchers, maybe. Her ponytail was pulled partially free and some of her violet hair hung limply in her eyes, damp with sweat. She was wearing skewed glasses, as though she’d taken a hit to the face already and just jumped back into the fight.

This wasn’t right, though. Protocol dictated all analysts and researchers terminate or lock down their subjects in the case of a breach or fire before evacuating so a safe distance. She shouldn’t be here, and yet here she was, holding what looked like a broken pipe pulled roughly from a piece of machinery, heaving great breaths. He saw her muscles bunch under her pants, her knees locking for an instant. She was getting ready to charge at him again.

“Whoa, lady! Hold on!” He put his hands up, weapon in the air and finger off the trigger where she could see it. She took another step forward, and when he didn’t raise his gun, she lowered her makeshift baton a fraction. Now that she wasn’t moving, he recognized her from McIntyre’s office.

“Just stop right there!” She growled at him. “No sudden moves! No one comes further than this. I don’t know who you are, which means you don’t have access to—”

“Calm down, fuck’s sake.” He flipped up his visor. “I’m Robert Cross, and I need past you.”

“You’re the one who’s fault this is! _No!_ You’re not authorized, and I’m not letting anyone else in there to keep… to keep _torturing_ it!”

“Hey,” he said gently, “I think I know what you’re getting at, alright? I’m here to get him out.” He decided on a whim to trust her, for no real reason than because he didn’t want to hurt her to get by. “I don’t want him to be a lab rat any more than you do. I know this is my fault, but I was wrong.”

She was kind of listening, but her shoulders were still shaking, and behind her glasses, her eyes welled up a little. “I didn’t know they’d actually do it. They said my work was supposed to be hypothetical. And then they brought it in. They didn’t tell me I’d have to watch it _struggle.”_

“Ma’am?”

“They said we could just contain it, that it didn’t have to die, that we could just keep it safe and away from the population. It would have been kinder to kill it, and I was so _stupid_, because I should have known they’d want it for more fucking tests. To make more monsters like… like it…”

“That may be so, Miss. But you don’t think of him as a monster, do you?”

She had gotten distracted, and the weapon in her hands had begun to list towards the floor in her limp fingers, but she caught her grip before it could slip away and brought it back up between them. Suddenly, the anxiety and the babbling were lost behind a determination that Cross had wished he saw more often from his agents.

“When you found it,” she thrust the weapon forward a little for emphasis. “When they took him. Do you know where it was? What he was doing, when they came for him? Who was he?”

Cross lowered his hands to his sides, and met her gaze steadily. “He looked after his sister. He tutored college students and fed pigeons at the park. He ate lunch with me once a week, and whenever we could find the time. He didn’t care for music, but he liked reading, and…”

A memory pulled at something in his chest. He remembered the five-year-old that had wandered away from her parents at a restaurant, had slid into Alex’s booth as though she’d belonged there, and just began asking him questions about the neuroscience textbook he’d had laid open on the table.

Cross had approached a few minutes later, only just catching the tail end of that interaction, while the little girl hung off of him and pointed to pictures in the book and asked what they were. Alex had answered every question, calmly and patiently, while she nodded with solemnity and kept asking, _“Why, why, why?”_ over and over again.

When the little girl’s parents finally found her about ten minutes later, looking pale and relieved and thanking Alex profusely for keeping an eye on her, Alex barely acknowledged them. He gave the little girl a wave as she was pulled away, the tiniest of smiles on his face.

“He was _ridiculously_ good with kids.” A hint of sadness tugged at him, and suddenly he just wanted to go home.

The researcher was still trembling, still breathing fast, frightened breaths with too-wide eyes, but after a long few seconds she lowered the weapon and let it fall to the ground with a loud clang. “This way. The containment chamber is still active, but I’ve transferred him to the temporary one. I was scared to wake him up right now, as he is.”

Halfway down the hall there was a body on the ground, a soldier. Unconscious, not dead. Cross had no idea who it was, but judging by the matted blood on the back of the man’s head and the faint splotches of maroon he had noticed on the woman's improvised weapon, he could guess what happened.

Cross took note. This lady wasn’t here to play any games.

She led him to a nondescript white door among dozens of indistinguishable others, and scanned first a badge and then her eye, when prompted. The door unlocked with a beep, and Cross stepped into the darkened room with a sudden foreboding. The emergency lights were still on, bathing the room in a hellish glow, similar to blood-soaked sky above hives, where the virus was so thick it stained the air crimson. It was empty, the quiet hum of machinery met his ears, and he adjusted his eyes to the dimness for a second.

Row upon row of work spaces and computers, heavy, expensive equipment and monitoring stations, all abandoned in a rush to escape a doomed building. A cup of coffee was on its side, having dripped itself all over a set of controls that would no longer be needed.

“I know they took samples, but I can’t do anything about them.” The woman said.

“What’s your name, miss?”

“Doctor Chrissy Jury, Commander. I’m the lead researcher for this area.”

“Dr. Jury, do you know what room numbers the samples might be stored in? I don’t want to leave them in the hands of… well, people like you. No offense.” He lifted a shoulder.

Chrissy shrugged also. “All offense taken, but I agree with you completely.”

She started listing them off, and Cross conveyed them to the Wisemen. “Hopefully they’ll be able to take care of it before we get out.”

“Right. It’s over there, by the way. In that big frozen metal box.”

The commander followed her across the room to a corner, where indeed a huge cart was holding a box the size of an office desk, covered with little screens and readouts, icy cold to the touch. There was a tiny window, but it was frosted over. “He’s in there?”

“Yeah. The last time they brought him back, he… he wasn’t moving as much.” Jury crossed her arms across her chest before pulling one arm free and pushing her glasses up. “I’ve set the temperature to rise for the next thirty minutes to something he’s more comfortable with but… I’m scared to open it.”

Cross agreed. “It might be best to wait, at least until we have something for him to eat. We’ll leave him until we can get to a safer location.”

“And how do you propose we get this gigantic ass containment unit to a safe location? Push it out the front door? Down to the loading bay?” She was frustrated, he could tell.

“Well, I would just put him in my pocket instead, if he could behave.” He said, not kidding that much but knowing Zeus would be in no shape to handle such close contact. “I hate to leave him in there, but without being able to communicate with him before we open it, it could end very badly for everyone. Let’s just get it as far out of here as we can and we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it. There’s a freight elevator near the—“ he paused.

During a brief lull in his speaking, he noticed a sound he hadn’t before. “What is that?” He asked, interrupting something she’d been about to say and glancing around to find the source of the strange buzzing. All of the machines besides the box were offline, powered down, cold and silent. He finally placed it as coming from inside the box.

“It’s been doing that since they brought it back the first time, off and on. It sounds like it’s humming a song, or something.”

They listened for a second, eyes unfocused as Cross tried to piece together the suddenly very familiar melody. It was fragmented, missing whole beats and notes and slightly off key, but—

“…_or did you exchange_,” Cross sang along, quietly, now certain. _“A walk-on part in a war for a lead role in a cage…” _His grip on his weapon tightened. “It _is_ a song.” He confirmed. “Wish You Were Here. It’s his sister’s favorite. She plays that album on a loop when she’s coding and it drives him nuts.”

“His sister?” She blinked, and then laughed incredulously. “He’s singing fucking _Pink Floyd?_ _Why?_ You said he didn’t like music.”

Cross didn’t move, suddenly realizing that Alex was doing just that, _singing_. The virus’s way of calling out like a bird to its flock, singing its part in a chorus that it longed to have completed. Except the singing was a metaphor; it was how Alex had described a feeling that the English language didn’t have words to explain.

He wasn’t singing for another virus, he was calling for Dana.

_Sorry, Alex. _He didn’t say._ I’m all you’ve got for now._

“Can he hear us?” He asked instead.

“Absolutely; there’s a two-way intercom. It was so we could test to see if it— uh, he still understood language when he was like this.” Jury felt the need to explain. “I haven’t decided yet if he can or can’t, or what the threshold is for intelligence. His reactions are hard to read, without a face or limbs or anything.”

Cross barely listened to her, only started humming a little louder alongside it, in harmony. He leaned forward, squinting into the foggy viewing window, and almost shit himself when something dark and solid slammed itself against the glass from within with more force than it should have been able to summon. The song cut off abruptly and the box rocked slightly on the cart.

Jury snorted, “I think he knows it’s you.”

“I think he does too. Hey, buddy. You look like a ball of evil play-dough, you know that?” He said to the thing that was currently animatedly writhing against the window, occasionally rearing back and striking at the glass with a dull _thunk_ as often as it could find the strength to. It paused in its struggle, eyeing him with those dark somethings that passed for eyes, before redoubling its effort and frantically banging and scrabbling against the walls of the tank. It still couldn’t manage much; whatever they’d just done to it had taken a lot out of it, but that didn’t stop it from trying to come through the glass to rip his head off.

“He wants out.” Dr. Jury said.

“I’m sure he does, poor guy. Hey, you’ve gotta be calm for a minute, alright, I can’t let you out just—”

“What the fuck is going on here?” Shouted an angry voice from behind them. They spun around, and Cross was already trying to think of an excuse, something to make this look less like treason, but there was nothing he could say.

“Uh…”

“I’m giving you three seconds! One!”

“Calm down, I’m allowed to be here! My name is Captain Cross, I have level seven clearance!”

“No one is allowed to be here but the researchers and the general, and you’re neither! Time’s up!” He raised his rifle, aimed it at Cross’s head—

Jury slammed a palm down on a row of switches on the other side of the box, and the cover sprang off with a clang.

_“Son of a fucking bitch!”_ Cross stumbled, and Jury fell backward over a table in her haste to get away. The virus writhed animatedly when the warmer air hit it, and it sprang from its prison like a bullet, tumbling end over end when it met the concrete floor and then making its way across toward the door, sprouting new limbs to drag itself forward with tiny black claws before reabsorbing and reforming new ones.

The soldier who had just come in, just some faceless Blackwatch trooper, reeled backward and slammed the door shut as Zeus came flying at him. It lodged itself into the man’s chest, cutting off any screams with a short choking sound.

The man’s chest began to collapse in on itself. With a horrible slurping and crunching of bone, Zeus pulled his biomatter toward himself and processed it, infected it, until there wasn’t enough left of the man to keep the body upright and he collapsed in a heap. Zeus pulled free, falling back to the floor again and darting away with all the speed of a gecko, dragging the remains behind it with tendrils of red and black, leaving behind red streaks on the floor as it made its escape.

“Wait, Zeus! Shit—“ Jury yelled after it, but it slid under the doorframe, all writhing tentacles and eyes and slime, and it disappeared.

“…That did not just happen.” Cross said. “Shit, that didn’t just… _Shit!”_ Cross eyed the slick streak of blood on the tile for a second before fumbling with his radio. “Cross to Wisemen, Cross to Olympus!” he called out, “Zeus is free in Gentek facility three, twelfth floor. Evacuate nearby civilians to extraction point and _don’t_ _engage_. This is a Code Carpenter situation. I repeat, do not engage!” He ignored the dozens of voices that piped up in his earpiece, some demanding to know what had happened while others chorused affirmatives.

Jury made to open the door, but Cross grabbed her arm to hold her back. “What are we waiting for?” Jury demanded. “We have to go after him!”

“No, you’re not trained for this. He’s still dangerous.”

“Are you kidding me? He just ate a whole person! Is that not enough?!” Her face fell when Cross shook his head forebodingly.

“Not after this. On a normal day, maybe. But I’ve never seen him this small.” He grimaced. “He normally weighs about twice as much as a school bus, if that puts it into perspective for you. Even that’s usually pushing it. He’s going to need more. A lot more.”

She looked horrified. “Then why did he leave? He had no reason not to come after us, too.”

“Maybe you made an impression on him.” Cross yanked the door open, finding a trail of gore streaking one way down the hall, suddenly cutting off as Alex must have finished his meal. “It certainly wasn’t for my sake. Look, just take this,” he pulled out his earpiece and handed it to her. “There’s no telling what else has broken containment by now. Find somewhere out of the way to hide, hunker down, and call my Wisemen. They’ll ask for a code, _Oxen free_. Stay there. They’ll come get you, but I can’t go until after I find him.”

She nodded, putting it in her own ear and trying to stay calm. “Stay safe, captain.”


	13. Chapter 13

Dana took a deep breath, wiping her hands on the Gentek science uniform she’d stolen, trying to look like she knew where she was going and what she was doing here. She rounded a corner, heart racing, sweat gathering in the hair at the base of her neck. 

She really wanted to stop thinking about the eyeball in her pocket. 

That had probably been the most awful, horrific thing she’d ever seen, or had to do. The room she needed to get into required clearance way higher than even Cross possessed, and of course the lock required a _retinal scan, _and the only person she’d found who might have the proper authority to open the door was lying dead on the floor six rooms behind her, gunned down by the Blackwatch guards that were supposed to be protecting her. 

Dana supposed she couldn’t complain, since it was a miracle she’d found the right person at all, but this was all going so wrong. Alex was on the loose, and she didn’t have any idea where he was or what he was doing, or if he even knew what was happening around him. Any of the personalities in his head could be calling the shots right now, or worse, none of them. Dana wanted so _badly _to stop what she was doing, to turn around and go find him, to apologize, to tell him she loved him and make sure he was alright, but she didn’t. Instead, she clenched her jaw and lifted her head, trying to walk as though she belonged here as best as she could manage. Mia’s situation was her sin, and she would make this right, just like Cross. 

She rounded a corner, and froze. 

In front of her were five uniformed soldiers, all in black and wearing face masks, all making their way down the hall with their weapons at the ready. They were in a formation, two men watching the back, one watching forward down the hall, and the other two were clearing the rooms between them, deftly inputting codes to unlock the doors and scanning them for something. 

The soldier at the front of the line halted when they saw her, and called out,_ “Freeze!”_

If she ran, Dana knew she wouldn’t make it to cover before he killed her, and a real Gentek employee would be expecting these men to_ protect _her, so she complied, her heart skipping a beat and her eyes watering in fear. There was nothing else she could do. She was helpless, and they were probably going to kill her. 

“What are you doing down here?” A voice shouted at her, female. 

“I’m… I was looking for someone,” she lied, and she didn’t need much effort to pretend to cry, because the impulse was already right within reach. The best lies were half-truths, anyway, and Dana had always been a better liar than her brother. Maybe some of that was Cross rubbing off on her. “I was a few stories up when the alarms went off, and my coworker was with me but I can’t find her now, and thank god you’re here, you have to help me—" 

“Hold on a second, you look familiar.” The soldier flipped open her visor, revealing a shock of blond hair. “You look just like…” 

“She does,” Said another, lowering his weapon and removing his visor as well. “It has to be Zeus’s sister, right?” 

Dana’s heart skipped a beat and she spun around, knowing she wouldn’t have time to run but it was her only chance now— 

“Whoa, whoa! It’s okay! We’re not going to—“ The woman put a hand up when she started to panic. “We’re Captain Cross’s team! The Wisemen! _Olly __olly__ oxen free!”_

Dana felt like crying again, for real this time. “Thank fucking god,” she breathed, lowering her hands. Her legs were still weak. “I need help.” 

The group exchanged glances, then gave each other the tiniest of nods. “Well, we’ll help you, then.” Said the first woman. “I’m Lieutenant Walker. This is Reza. We were there when the Ravager squad took your brother. We were supposed to man the perimeter, in case he bolted.” 

“He didn’t,” added Reza darkly. “But he’s broken containment now. I’m glad you found us. If our captain issued a Code Carpenter, that means it’s bad.” 

“What does that mean?” Dana asked, her stomach sinking. “I heard him say it, but I didn’t understand and he’s not answering now.” 

“It means Mercer is out of control,” Reza answered. “Wherever he is, he’s too hurt or too hungry to be aware of his actions. It’s our code to avoid him at all costs.” 

“Did that used to happen a lot?” Dana didn’t know why she asked, because she didn’t want to know, but she asked anyway. 

“Once or twice,” Reza admitted. 

An awful thought hit her. “Does that mean Cross is dead?” 

The group stilled, and a few of them looked down. 

“It’s likely.” Said Walker, and her voice was even, but her eyes were sad. “If he was close by, Zeus wouldn’t have let him go. And he’s not answering his radio.” 

It was hard to hear, and for a minute she felt despair curl tight around her chest, but she forced herself to remember why she was here. “…Okay. _Okay_.” She repeated, as though it would make it true. “Do you guys have other orders right now?” 

Walker shrugged. “We destroyed all of the samples of Blacklight that Cross sent us after, so now we’re evacuating civilians. And Cross left us orders to follow you, should something happen to him, so…” 

Dana didn’t want to think about what that probably meant. “Okay. Then we’re going to get Mia, and then we’re going to get Alex, and we’re getting the fuck out of here.” Dana said, her tone brokering no argument. 

“Yes, ma’am.” Said Reza with a quirk of the mouth and a little salute. He turned back around, making a sharp gesture at the other three soldiers. “Ness, Morgan, keep an eye on her. Daniels has the tail. Dana? Lead the way.” 

* * * 

Dr. Jury was, if she was honest, scared out of her fucking mind. 

She cautiously picked her way through the empty facility, taking in the chaos left in the wake of the vacated staff. There had been gunfire in the distance, echoing throughout the building from several floors beneath her at least, and she could only assume that Cross was right, that some of the other subjects had gotten free as well. 

“Maybe I should have stayed put,” she mumbled, glancing around nervously. 

Zeus had broken his containment and she had no idea where he was, but she knew people would come looking for him once the dust settled, and the containment chamber would be a bad place to be caught when they did. She had to find somewhere better to hide. 

Jury heard a quiet little noise a little farther down the hall, past a break room, and she crept forward, drawing up a bit in relief when she saw someone in a Blackwatch officer uniform sweeping steadily through a darkened lab. The soldier had his back to her and a weapon at the ready. She watched the beam of his light fall on empty chairs and illuminate shadowy corners, wondering briefly how she would get his attention without getting her head blown off for startling him. 

She’d just have to take the chance; she didn’t have a whole lot of other options. Jury knew she had no chance against Zeus, or anything else that might be running wild in the chaos, might be looking for a quick meal. A disheveled and bespectacled scientist would be a tempting target, and it wasn’t like she could fight back, since she wasn’t even armed. 

She opened her mouth to get his attention, to ask for help, to beg him to protect her or at least give her a weapon of her own. She had no idea if Cross was around or even if he was still alive, but hopefully this was one of his Wisemen, or maybe one of Vasquez’s Ravagers. 

Before she could make any noise at all, she felt strong arms seize her from behind and an icy cold hand slapped over her mouth, stifling her surprised shriek before it left her throat, and she was dragged back around the corner and out of sight of the soldier. Jury struggled in their grasp, plying at their fingers uselessly, her heart pounding. When their hold on her tightened warningly, she let herself go limp, still shaking with terror. 

They seemed to be mulling it over for a moment, and then with a little hesitation, they let her go. 

As soon as she was released Jury whirled around, sucking in a sharp breath to shout to the soldier for help, but the person standing in front of her had a finger to his lips, and something in his sharp, severe gaze made her shout die on her tongue.

It was still too dark to see, everything tinted a deep crimson under the emergency lighting. She could barely make out any other features in the gloom aside from a dark jacket, the hood pulled up over his head, and a pair of bright, burning eyes. The man lost interest in her momentarily and dusted himself off with a frown. He looked down at his hands for a minute with a strange, pinched expression on his face before he squeezed them into fists and gave a hard shudder. 

Jury blinked. “Wh—” 

The man’s head snapped up and he shook it adamantly, again silently shushing her. Then he lowered his hands and made a familiar motion. She watched him for a long second, almost uncomprehending, before he did it again, now with barely restrained impatience, and she realized what he was doing. 

_ Do you sign? _His hands said, slowly this time. 

_ Yes, _she replied with a few quick gestures, surprised. _I learned f__or my little sister. _

He didn’t look surprised at this and just nodded as if to confirm what he already knew. _Don’t speak out loud. _He told her. _There’s at least five soldiers within hearing range right now. Don’t approach anyone in uniform. They’ve been gunning down stragglers. Not asking questions. Staff included. _

She watched the jerky, but almost factory perfect way his fingers explained the situation, wondering what the odds were that someone else around here knew American Sign Language, but the last detail froze her in place. They were killing the staff?_ Civilians _? Analysts and researchers? What the fuck was going on? 

Then she realized that they were most likely looking for Zeus. Of course they were killing everyone that they hadn’t kept in their line of sight. Her heart started racing again, and she was almost overwhelmed before a quiet snap of fingers got her attention. 

The man was angled away from her, his eyes tight. He was holding his breath. _Calm down, would you? _He motioned. 

_ Who do you think you are? _She demanded with sharp, angry movements, but he cringed away, and she felt her anger dissolve. He was right, anyway. Panicking would get them both killed. She took a deep breath, willing herself calm. _What department did you come from? Who are you? _

_ I was on this floor when the alarms went off. _He peeked down the hall again, signing without looking at her. He was exceptionally good at it, and if she had the time for anything but fear she would make an impressed comment on it. 

_ Coast is clear, for now. _He then glanced at her, hesitated again, and signed, _you really don’t know who I am? _

She was staring at him now, racking her brains for any faces she remembered from her years at Gentek. He was vaguely familiar, but she couldn’t put her finger on it. 

_ What’s your name? _She asked shakily. 

He was peering at the wall now, only half paying attention, but his focus snapped back to her when she asked. He looked at her strangely, like he was confused. He made a little motion like he was going to answer, wavered, then spelled out _M__-E-N-D-E-L._Then he hesitated again for a long moment. _I __was a researcher here. R&D. _

His reluctance was starting to make her suspect that he was lying._ I think I would remember someone with a name like that. _While she responded, he watched her hands move with a weird interest that made her a little uncomfortable. She hoped she hadn’t just thrown in her lot with some creep. 

_ We never got to really make polite introductions. _Mendel replied with a wry smile when he managed to tear his eyes away. _Not after— _He stopped, staring at the wall again as though listening for something she couldn’t hear, before hastily motioning that they had go. 

There would be time for this later, she decided, so she followed him as he picked his way through the debris. Maybe they could find a quiet place to hunker down before she called Cross’s team. They could get both of them out. It didn’t matter that this guy was a little weird; if she recognized him, he probably worked here, and following a sort-of stranger was better meeting a bloody end at Blackwatch’s hands. 

At some point, as if to highlight her thoughts, they passed a set of bullet holes lining the wall above a stain she didn’t want to think about, but Mendel passed it without a second glance. His shoulders tensed up as he got close, though, and he didn’t relax until they were a little ways down the hall. 

“You alright?” She whispered, and his head jerked at the sudden sound of her voice in the otherwise complete, echoing silence. 

He turned around, frowning._ Why wouldn’t I be? _He signed. 

Her eyebrows shot up. _Maybe because we’re stuck in a building full of __soldiers __out to kill us, __and god knows what else has broken containment by now? Or how about— _

They both jumped out of their skins when a loud voice shouted at them from behind, farther down the hall. Mendel whipped around faster than her eyes could follow, hands coming up to pull her aside and get between her and the possible danger. She had just a second to be indignant about his rough handling before he yelled, “Soldier! Go, go,_ go!” _

Down the hall she could see a man, impressively tall and heavy, his face shielded by a helmet that obscured his features entirely. He was turning to face them, lumbering his powerful frame and bringing something huge and metal around with him, a small pilot light flickering at the end of its barrel. 

Mendel pushed her forward before she could make out any more details, and she felt her back pop with the force of his shove. There was a strange _whooshing _noise, like a powerful wind. 

“Get down!” He shouted in her ear, and suddenly he was on top of her, seizing her from behind with arms like concrete and eclipsing her with his body as he pushed her down with surprising strength into a crouch. The whooshing turned to a loud roar, and then there was a blast of heat around them, scorching the dust filled air. She felt him quaking, heard him yelp, and her heart almost burst through her chest in fear. 

For what felt like an eternity, there was nothing but a bright orange light that cut through the dull red glow like an angel parting the gloom of hell, and the shadow of Mendel looming over her was thrown into sharp relief on the slowly blackening tile at their feet. 

Jury could feel her skin starting to sear and blister, and she would have screamed for it if she weren’t already screaming, until the horrendous noise ceased, and she was dragged to her feet by trembling hands and almost literally thrown down the hall. 

_ “RUN!” _He bellowed, and she was complying before the signal even left her brain to do so. She didn’t need to be told twice. 

There was an tremendous crash behind her as she forced her charred and battered body to move, feeling the crispy skin on the back of her legs crack and begin to weep fluid. She kept running down the hall until she turned the corner, afraid that looking back would cost her precious time that she needed to escape. All she could hear was the pounding hard footfalls of someone running right at her heels. She prayed that Mendel had survived whatever she’d just heard, prayed that the soldier wouldn’t catch her, and redoubled her speed. 

When Jury finally chanced a glance over her shoulder, she almost tripped in surprise at the sight of Mendel giving chase, watching their backs and staggering, but keeping up. He noticed her stunned expression when he turned his head forward again. 

“Keep going,” he urged, and he sounded like he was in pain but he didn’t look hurt anywhere she could see. A horrible, burnt smell clung to him, though, and he seemed disoriented. “A little farther, just— I think I hit him, but I couldn’t risk sticking around long enough to make sure he went down.” 

They made it a little farther, past a few more labs, before he took point and waved her into a storage room. “Catch your breath. We’ve still got a ways to go.” He wasn’t looking at her, his hands balled at his sides. 

They couldn’t wait any longer, not if someone knew they were here. Jury reached for the radio in her ear, and her stomach sank. 

“I had a radio, I was supposed to call for help. I think I lost it while we were running.” She lamented. 

“That’s alright, we’ll be fine.” Mendel answered, his words clipped. 

“If we can make it downstairs, there’s an employee entrance past the QC labs. Not everyone knows about it. They might not be guarding it.” 

He nodded, jaw clenched tight. He was shivering. 

“Are you hurt?” Jury blurted, before the reality of what had just happened slammed into her like an anvil. “Oh my god, are you— holy shit, the fire! Are you burned? Come here, let me see.” She insisted, but before she could get too close, he recoiled as though she’d been about to hit him, pressing his back to the wall. 

“Ah, uh, no. I’m not.” He winced, and she could tell he was lying, but she didn’t come closer. 

“Really? Because you were shielding me with your body and I still got burned. How are you fine?” She frowned. “Thanks for that, by the way. That was… that was really good of you,” she said lamely, but he looked stricken. 

“You’re hurt?” He straightened, lifting his hands for a second before dropping them with a frustrated huff and looking away. 

“Are you one of the new D-Codes?” She asked, and he looked surprised. “You’re a little shorter than they usually come, but it’s cool if you are. You can tell me.” 

“Yeah, sure. Look, forget me. Where are you…? Oh. Yeah, you’re pretty burnt,” Mendel winced a little, and she wondered how anyone could tell when everything was flushed with red at the moment. He was giving her a concerned once-over, and she looked down at herself, curious what he was seeing. 

Her lab coat was in tatters, charred on one side and smeared with ash, glinting with little shards of broken glass. She gave it a shake, dislodging some of it with some of the filth, before bringing a hand to her hair absentmindedly and swearing, making Mendel startle again. 

She groaned. “My hair is all crispy. I _just _got it done, too. You wouldn’t believe how expensive… What are you looking at?” 

“Nothing,” he was smiling just barely, his face so fond that it took her breath for a second, but then suddenly it dropped, as though he’d just tasted something bitter. “You reminded me of my sister, a little.” 

They didn’t have time to get into that, so Jury took a second to strip off her coat, inspecting its mostly charred appearance with another apprehensive glance back at Mendel. Then she tossed it aside. “My mom was right. I should have just gone to nursing school.” 

“Yeah,” he agreed with a little snort, pushing himself away from the wall but edging along it, keeping careful distance. When he had put a few more meters of space between them, he loped toward the exit almost drunkenly, like his center of gravity wasn’t where he expected it to be. “Come on.” 

“You sure you’re alright?” She asked him as he turned the corner and started making his way down the hall. 

“Yeah,” he gritted out after a few seconds. “Just... be quiet and stay back.” 

Jury noticed with a start that he was limping. She moved to follow him, opening her mouth to ask if he was_ really sure _that he was alright, but suddenly he halted in front of her, arm outstretched protectively to keep her from passing. 

Cross was standing there, his weapon having raised at suddenly being faced with a person as he’d rounded the corner a little farther up the hall. “Oh, thank fuck,” he said, lowering his rifle as he popped open his visor with the other hand. “I thought you were— Never mind, we have to get out of here, your—” 

“Ten seconds, Cross.” Jury jumped and put a hand to her mouth at the sheer savage intent in Mendel’s voice that came from seemingly nowhere. It was layered with rage and a deep, reverberating growl that she hadn’t known a human throat could make. “I’m going to give you ten seconds to turn around and leave before I remove your ribcage. I would really hate for the doctor to see that. Nine. _Eight.” _

“Hey, stop it, what are you doing?!” Jury darted around in front of him, but he barely even seemed to recognize that she was there. 

Cross’s face went white. “Jesus, man, hold on, I’m here to rescue—”

“_Seven_.” 

“Your sister is here! And Clara is outside waiting for me to bring you out!” Cross had his hands up in surrender, and Jury was sure she’d missed something. 

“Hey, stop it!” She insisted, and he pushed her aside with a snarl, stalking a few feet closer to Cross with his hands balled into fists. 

“I’ll just have to rip her location from your brain and go find them, won’t I? _Six._” 

“Alex, please.” Cross interrupted, and his voice cracked, shocking him into silence. “Alex, hold on just a second, let me just—” He threw his gun to the ground, hands up in surrender. 

Something was going on here, and the weight of the realization was bearing down on her, but she couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe. The knowledge eluded her grasp because she wasn’t reaching for it, she was too fucking terrified, and instead her eyes fell on the gun discarded at Cross’s feet and the sticky blood that clung to it. 

“You_— _ You’re a fucking _liar! _You think I’m just going to_—” _

“Stop, stop it, _stop it!” _Jury screamed and pressed her hands to her ears. She squeezed her eyes shut, because what was _happening, _why was this happening _now_, why couldn’t they just leave, she just wanted to _go __home_. 

In the silence that followed, she heard someone shuffling up to stand in front of her. 

“Hey,” someone said softly. 

She pried open her eyes to look up, freezing at what she saw. 

Mendel was watching her with a concerned expression, his back to the Captain. The rotating light from the alarm panel above them was hitting his face along with the comparatively blue moonlight through the windows, brightening angles she hadn’t been able to make out before. Out of nowhere, it hit her. 

They stared at each other for a second, her face slacking in slowly dawning horror. 

“It’s _you_.” Jury whispered, and his brief puzzlement was a distraction that bought her a precious second to scramble away, running on adrenaline, before attempting to duck around him and toward Cross. 

She heard a sharp intake of breath as she passed him, and then a hand snagged the back of her coat. She jolted and turned to see Mendel—_ Mercer _holding on to her coat, a peculiar expression on his face. Out of nowhere he was breathing hard, and his eyes were _red._

Her stomach sank. 

“No, _no, no, no! _L-Let me go! _Let me go!” _She started to thrash even as she knew she would never get away, didn’t have a fly’s chance in a flamethrower of fighting off _Z__eus. _

Cross took an alarmed step forward. “Jury, stop fighting!” 

The hungry look in Mercer’s eyes overtook his entire being for a moment as he wrapped a hand around her throat and pushed her up against a wall, his body angling toward hers in a way that would have been _great _normally, from a man who looked like he did, but she knew what followed now would be _not _so great.He was out of his mind, a savage, wild animal. He was going to kill her. 

He was going to _eat _her! 

“Please,” her voice didn’t leave her throat, but her mouth formed the words, dry on her tongue as she choked on her fear. She couldn’t just die like this! 

“Let her go, Alex.” Came a calm but insistent order. “I know you don’t want to do that, alright? Put her down, she’s not involved in this. Alex,_ let her go_.” 

She could feel her awareness fading in and out, unable to draw breath, and the edges of her sight began to turn grey, the voices coming to her ears muffled, turning words to nonsense… 


	14. Chapter 14

“Let her go, Alex. I know you can.” 

Alex held the poor doctor off of her feet while she kicked the air uselessly, his eyes dull and glazed in pain while his human disguise slipped away in places. “I—” he said weakly, pleading, still not looking at him. “I— I _can’t _—” 

“I know, buddy. I know it hurts, but this is all_ my _fault, not hers. If you can’t wait, if this has to happen now, let her go and take me. Just a few more seconds, I’m standing right here. Look, I won’t even run. Right here.” 

Alex was holding himself stiffly, heaving great breaths, his eyes a thousand miles away, but Cross could tell he was listening, or at least trying to. 

“She was good to you, she saved you. You don’t want to hurt her, but you want to hurt me, don’t you? Come on, let her go. One hand, that’s all you have to move. That’s it, easy,” he held his hands up as Alex’s grip slowly slackened on Jury’s neck, and she fell to the floor. “Easy, now.” 

Jury sucked in air desperately, her hand massaging her throat and pulling at the collar of her shirt. She was preparing to bolt, was shifting around to gracelessly draw herself to her feet, but stilled at the frantic shake of Cross’s head._ Don’t run, _he mouthed, _don’t run! _

Alex was hardly paying attention, his fists clenching and releasing, going crazy with little waves of tendrils that started at his head and crawled down his body, shifting his human form into a dark writhing mass before passing and returning to a recognizable shape. 

“I have to— I_ can’t— _Cross_, get her out of here!” _Alex snarled, forming claws and raking them through a line of heavy equipment on the wall. They sparked and crashed to the floor. Jury squeaked in terror, but stayed where she was. 

“Doctor, get up and walk _slowly _toward me.” Cross ordered, articulating carefully and not taking his eyes off of the wretched thing in front of him. “Stay as calm as possible and whatever you do, _do not run.” _

Jury swallowed and did as she was told, propping herself up on weak legs to stumble numbly over to the captain. Her eyes squeezed shut as she passed Alex, whose breath caught in his throat, his whole body locking up with the effort of staying still. 

“Go,” Cross told her quietly, when she had made it to his side. “Find the Wisemen and get out of here. This is between us.” 

She nodded weakly, backing through the room until she reached the doorway, darting around it in one swift motion and vanishing from sight. They listened to the sudden pounding of running footsteps until they faded from Cross’s hearing. 

He needed to give her time to get to safety. Time for a distraction. 

“Hey, Alex.” Cross carefully kicked his weapon aside. Alex flinched at the small sound it made when it collided with a table leg across the room. “Easy, now. It’s alright, you’re alright,” He coaxed, gently. He had a sudden flash of something that felt like a memory, his mother stroking his hair saying those exact words in that exact way, easing his pain with her love. Strange, though; he’d never remembered anything of his real mother before this. What a time for a memory like that to resurface. “Everything’s gonna be okay.” 

Cross knew what would come next, and there would be no escaping it. If Alex truly wanted to kill him, nothing would stop him from doing it, and he was too hungry to _want _to stop himself. And when he did, he would see that he was right to loathe him, to want to end him, and so Cross waited for his judgement, for wrath. 

Instead, he got misery and hurt, which was_ worse._

“Why?” Alex asked, digging his clawed fingers into his palms until they pushed all the way through, emerging black and sticky through the backs of his hands. “_Why?” _

Cross didn’t really know what to say. Alex was still vibrating with a ravenous energy Cross had only seen a few times, though never this bad and never this close. “I didn’t know. I didn’t understand, not until it was too late. I swear on the lives of my entire unit, Alex, that I am so sorry. I’m going to make this right.” 

The Blacklight virus turned to him unsteadily, but he didn’t seem all there. His eyes were dark and tired, half focusing on him before sliding away as if he didn’t exist. “I’m going to… I’ll just…” He trailed off, and began to drag himself toward the exit as though he weighed a thousand pounds. 

“Alex, stop,” Cross called, “Wait!” 

It didn’t seem like he heard, and Cross couldn’t let him go. He probably couldn’t stop him, either, but he had to try. If Alex just wandered off, there’s no telling what he might do in this state. A delirious Zeus was not something he wanted to unleash on the population of Manhattan; they’d only just begun to recover. 

So the Captain did the only thing he could think to, something he had promised not to do again: he darted forward and snagged him by the wrist. 

The effect was instantaneous. Alex went rigid, his jaw clenched so hard Cross could hear teeth cracking in his mouth. “Cross,” he ground out, deadly quiet and strained, “let go.” 

“No, I can’t, I’m sorry. I can’t let you go like this.” Cross said fervently. “If I let you leave, you’re going to have a whole lifetime and then some to regret whatever you…” Alex didn’t interrupt, was standing frozen as though he was afraid to breathe, but Cross couldn’t finish the thought anyway. “Just take me. I… I don’t want to… This is my fault. Alex, you don’t want to hurt anyone else, so take me first.” 

Alex shook his head this time, extricating himself with a sharp motion and backing against the wall to get away from him. “I don’t want this either!” 

“Why not?” Cross demanded. “What if you run into your sister like this? She’s out there somewhere right now. Christ, Alex, just let me— Look, aren’t you pissed? Don’t you hate me?” 

“Fucking quit it!” Alex growled as he dragged himself further away. 

“Then stop being such a fucking chicken and eat me already, god dammit!” The words tore from him before he could stop them. “I did this! I’ve been watching you from the start, collecting all of the data I needed, gathering intel and taking it back home to Blackwatch! This was the plan all along, _Zeus!” _

“Stop it,” Alex begged, anger giving way to despair as Cross pressed forward. He was panting as though he’d run a marathon. “I can’t— I mean it, you have to _back up—” _

“I spent a whole year looking for something I could use to destroy you, because I hate you, you _disgust _me, and then one afternoon you spill all of your weaknesses to me for no fucking reason like a moron, like a _child_—” 

“Just—" His voice broke. "_Stop."_

“—and what did I do but go skipping right back home and tell them exactly how they could destroy you? Fuck’s sake, _j__ust eat me!” _Cross punctuated the words with a sharp movement. 

Alex had little warning. He twitched sharply at the new, heady scent that was suddenly right there under his nose, until it was_ on him. _The blood flowing freely from a self-inflicted wound on Cross’s palm was suddenly and messily smeared across his face, shocking him into a stillness. The rich crimson was dark against the paleness of his skin and the hungry, glowing radiance of his eyes. 

Cross could see the exact moment when he came apart, when what little humanity Alex was clinging to was shoved violently aside for a hungry Zeus. Alex fragmented, emptying of everything but the need to _consume. _

Then Cross was slammed up against the wall, just like Jury had been only moments ago, but more forcefully, hard enough that he felt ribs crunch. He suffocated on his own blood for a second while Alex stared at him, expression contorted as his skin blurred to pull in the precious few cells Cross had streaked across his face. 

A hand was squeezing his throat and the other was gripping his arm, snapping the delicate bones there. He gasped at the blinding agony of it, pulling more blood into his lungs and knowing very well that worse was coming. Cross waited for it, bracing himself for what would surely be the fast but unbearable torture of being flayed and picked apart and dissolved. Those bright eyes were boring into him, looking through him, not really seeing him. 

Something began to come undone in the palm of the hand that gripped his broken arm, little tendrils wriggling against his bare, vulnerable skin and digging in with tiny claws, peeling pieces of him away. 

He told himself he would not scream. He owed Alex that much, he would not make his friend listen to his dying screams for the rest of his eternity— 

Something pushed its way under his skin, and he felt it begin to snake through his blood vessels, mingling with the viral particles that floated in his veins. Black and red clashed, reacting with one another until his whole being thrummed with the force of their struggle, the energy of it, his entire body and every cell a war zone. 

And then, without warning, he could _hear. _

* * * 

It _was _like a song, in the same way a nuclear blast was like a fireworks display. Its sheer volume was a shockwave of noise and sensation that overwhelmed everything else. His very bones and teeth rattled with it. All other noise and feeling melted away under it. 

There was an emptiness. 

It was low, an accompaniment part, perhaps a bass line, only useful as a foundation on which to build a melody, but it was _important. _He felt himself reaching desperately for it, opening something within himself that he hadn’t known was there, lifting up his voice to sing— and finding himself mute. The horror of it, the _despair_— 

Over the cacophony, high and loud and mightier than anything he’d ever heard, came another sound, a dark tune connecting with him like puzzle pieces and suffocating him under its will. The subjugating melody could only described as a _black light_. It bathed the world in a surreal, ethereal darkness that picked out certain elements to respond to its glow with a bright shine of their own. It was entwined with another song, so quiet it was barely there, but so fierce and steady, full of… love? 

The other song, the quiet one, dragged him along like a fish on a hook, digging into his being and leaving no alternative, no give. It hauled him upright, shook him firmly. 

_ Sing, _She urged. _Must sing! _

He tried. He couldn't.

_ Sing! _She pleaded. _Please! _

Cross tried_ so hard. _

He just couldn’t sing, could only scream, and it was… wrong._ Warped. _It wasn’t good enough, it wasn’t in tune, wasn’t loud enough, wasn’t right. Something about it was stifled, crumbling_,_ and it hurt almost as much as the silence had but he _couldn’t stop— _

An unbearably loud crack rang through the air like a whip, and unrelenting roar of Blacklight’s siren call shut off like someone had flipped a light switch. Reality flowed over him like molasses, silencing the music. 

There was pain. 

It was physical, real pain, dull and muted against the afterburn of the singing. One side of his face was burning like fire, he couldn’t see out of his right eye or feel his right arm. His vision swam back into a hazy half focus anyway, revealing the blurred outline of someone standing just in front of him, rearing backward as a gunshot rang out. A flash of motion tore through their head and burst out the other side with a spray of viscous black blood, or something else entirely. 

He realized a few seconds too slow that the first sound he’d heard had been a gunshot as well, and then a third echoed through the hall and through the person in front of him. Alex staggered backward and shrieked, falling to his knees and then throwing himself forward with rage, and as half a dozen more shots rang out, Cross fought to stay awake to see what happened next. 


	15. Chapter 15

When Cross woke again, and someone was shaking him. He was sitting upright, propped against the wall, left where he’d fallen when Alex had released him.

He was shaken again, more insistently this time, and he gasped as it set his injuries alight with new agony.

His body cried out in protest with every small movement. Everything hurt, pain radiating in waves from fractured ribs, from across the right side of his face, down his neck, and stopping halfway down his right arm, where all feeling simply ceased. That probably wasn’t a good sign.

“What’s...” Cross coughed wetly, struggling to get his bearings. He felt hands on him and made a weak attempt to push them away. Someone was talking, low and fast and pleading, and the voice was familiar.

“Who...?”

Somewhere very close by another voice spoke, high and feminine for all that it was raspy, cracked, abused. “Oh, thank god, captain! We have to get out of here, come on! Blackwatch—”

The other voice cut across her, wheezing and babbling nonsense words that spilled out like a waterfall. Cross’s eye snapped open when he realized who it was.

The world was fuzzy and red at the edges, and his horizon rocked wildly around as though he were standing on the bow of a ship in a storm, but he was alive. In front of him was the doctor, what was her name… Jury. Her eyes were red-rimmed and her throat was an ugly mottled purple, the bruises vivid enough that Cross knew she was lucky her trachea hadn’t been crushed.

On the floor a few meters behind her was a discarded pistol, its barrel still smoking, and a vague shape that lay prone and quivering on its side.

Cross took a few tries to find his voice. “What happened?” He managed to grate out.

“I went looking for help,” Jury said quietly, as though afraid of being overheard. “I thought maybe I’d run into someone from your team, but Captain Vasquez found me first.”

“Vas?” Cross blinked around, fuzzily trying to find him. “Where’s…”

“He got Zeus away from you, shot him a few times, and I thought he’d killed him until…” Jury bit her lip and her eyes welled up with tears. “He—Zeus got up, and he—he kept shooting him, but he—”

Cross could figure the rest out on his own. “Hey,” his breath rattled in his chest. “It’s okay.”

“I thought Zeus was going to kill you. He—” She bit back a sob. “He had his tentacles all over you, and he was ripping away pieces of—” Her voice cracked and she started to cry in earnest. “Oh, Captain, your _face.”_

Cross couldn’t give less of a shit about his face. He wasn’t dead, which he hadn’t planned for, but now he had to figure out how he was going to help Alex. “Is he alright?”

She shook her head. “Cross, he… I’m sorry Vasquez is dead.”

Cross barked out an ugly noise that would have been a laugh if it didn’t hurt so much, because he couldn’t give less of a shit about Vasquez, either. “No, I meant—”

Alex’s scratchy voice froze them both like deer in headlights. Dr. Jury flinched, her gaze following his to the shape on the floor behind her, which gave a weak little tremor.

“—scared… Mother? _Mother!?” _He let out a stream of broken sounds that could have been laughing or crying before breathlessly dissolving into a watery cough. _“The time for… the time for waiting… the… the time…”_

“He’s losing it,” Jury whispered, blanching.

“_—so sorry, I tried to stop him, but he… so hungry, we…” _There was a pained whine. “This is all we have, and then—and then a hole in the ground. This is—_This is all we have!” _

“We have to go,” Jury said quietly. “Blackwatch has the entire property surrounded. Vasquez said they called in reinforcements and they’re going to take the whole building down to keep anything from getting out. They’re shooting everyone that gets too closet to the doors.”

Cross took this in with forced interest before something occurred to him. “Am I missing an eye?”

She nodded, putting a hand over her mouth. “What are we going to do?” Jury breathed, despondent. “We’re going to die here, aren’t we?”

Cross thought about it. It would take quite a few thermobarics to raze the whole building. In order to scrape together that much firepower… “They’re—” Cross coughed, spitting out the sticky, metallic blood in his mouth with as little pause as he could. “They’re going to need a few thermobaric tanks.” It was harder than it should have been to gather his thoughts into words. “We wouldn’t have enough, not on this part of the island.”

“How long will it take to get them?” She asked.

To get it cleared, organize it with Red Crown, then mobilize their forces… “We have a few hours, at least.”

“Is that enough time for us to get out?”

“It’s at least enough for Shirley Mason over there to catch his breath.”

Cross gave the pistol on the floor a nudge with his foot, scraping the metal loudly across the tile.

The sound drew Alex’s attention instantly, his mouth snapping shut in the midst of his delirious rambling. His head twisted around at an unnatural angle to face them. He didn’t have any eyes to stare at them with, but Cross didn’t need his burning stare to practically feel the hunger and pain radiating off of him.

“Who’s that?” Alex called, with the half of his face that still actually resembled a face. “What—wait, come back! _Please!” _

They watched Zeus try and fail to drag himself miserably to his feet before he dropped again, coughing and gagging on his own tongue. Where his eyes should be was a gaping exit wound, dripping black gore and writhing with fine, delicate tendrils, but it wasn’t closing like it should. Long, slender limbs of black danced around him, flailing like eels and twitching every time he made a movement that brought him more pain before they sank back into his skin, only to emerge again.

“What happened… to the singing?” Alex finally gasped when he could breathe. “I heard it. The—the singing. It wasn’t me or Mother, or… where…” He started choking again.

Whatever kind of rounds Vasquez had shot him up with, they must have been laced with something; a Bloodtox and Blacktox cocktail, if Cross had to guess, maybe even something new. It would explain why Alex hadn’t healed yet, because judging by the state he was in now, he’d been hit with a _lot. _

“Cross, please, let’s just go,” Jury quaked, not taking her eyes off of Alex. “He’s really out of it. I don’t think he knows where he is. He might attack us.”

Cross was shaking his head before she’d even finished speaking. He was _not _going to let Alex out of his sight again, not for one god damn second, not after everything they’d gone through to find him. “No. Give him a minute.”

She looked torn between sympathy and fear. “What if he—” She stiffened and put a hand to her throat unconsciously.

“He can’t even stand up,” Cross pointed out. “He just needs some time to work the poison out of his system, and then we’ll go.” Cross winced at Alex’s whining and retching. “Poor guy.”

“What about you?” Jury cringed. “I can’t even believe you’re alive.”

Cross looked down at himself to take in the damage, and had to agree with her assessment.

As far as run-ins with Zeus went, he supposed he should count himself lucky. He was missing an eye, but he’d been aware of that. The skin on the right side of his face was all but gone, exposing teeth where they should be covered by the skin and muscle of his cheek. His right arm had been stripped of flesh to a disturbing extent, but there was enough meat left on his bones that he was confident in his regeneration’s ability to restore the limb to functioning order.

Cross had survived worse in the past, but if Vasquez had taken even two more seconds to fire, if Alex had gotten his tendrils into bone, the damage would have been more than he would have had time to fix. Either Alex had been fighting it harder than Cross had thought, or he’d just gotten really, _really _lucky.

Probably both.

_Thanks, Vasquez. Rest in peace, you pile of shit._

His stomach lurched a reminder. He gave himself a little pat down with the arm he still had, and then his stomach lurched for another reason. “You see a little black utility bag anywhere?” He asked Jury. “He probably shredded the strap when he ate that side of my suit.”

“I… uh, you…” Her eyes were still locked on Alex. “Actually, I think over there—”

_“You’re me!” _Alex screamed suddenly, and she jerked away with alarm. Alex drew himself up with titanic effort, only to stumble and fall to his hands and knees again with a pitiful keen. “You’re me! Why aren’t you—where? Where are you? So cold, I’m so… cold.” He shivered. “The singing. It’s loud, but it’s in pieces, so many of them. It…”

Whatever thought he’d had that had been so important, he must have lost it, because he just started muttering quietly after that.

Cross paused. “Alex, you with me?”

Alex jolted. “Who?” He demanded, and then he cried, his hands flying to his head to fist his hair. “I don’t know who that is! I don’t—I’m—Where—”

Cross put up placating hands, realizing a few seconds late that Alex couldn’t see them. “Take it easy, it’s alright. You can just rest there for a minute, okay? Easy, now.”

“Easy.” Alex repeated. “Easy.” Cross wasn’t sure if he actually understood or if he was just parroting, but he seemed to calm a little.

Cross turned back to Dr. Jury. “Okay, I’m serious. Black bag. Do you see it anywhere?”

Alex’s outburst must have frightened her, because Jury didn’t answer, unable to tear her eyes away from him.

“_Hey.” _Cross insisted. “I’m kind of in a hurry, here. I need that bag or I’m going to die.” He felt blood bubbling up his throat and into his mouth. The virus in him was working fast, stitching his body up piece by piece, but he already had the chills, and the shakes would start soon. It would get bad if he didn’t deal with it right away. “Please, can you get it for me?”

That seemed to shock her into action, and she stooped to pick up his bag from where it had fallen. She tossed it to him without a word, her eyes on Alex, who had fallen silent.

Cross didn’t catch it, but he snagged it from the floor clumsily when it slid to a halt at his feet. “Thank god,” he sighed, undoing the latch to find a dozen intact vials inside.

“What’s in it?” She asked. “Why is it so important right now?”

“It’s for the Redlight. I’m not a D-Code, I’m an older experiment, so there are things I have to do to keep the virus from killing me.” He drew out a pair of syringes, making a face as he forced the needles into his skin, pushed the plunger down slowly, then drew it back out. “Alex took a lot out of me, literally. The virus in my system is going to crank into overdrive to fix the damage, but I have to reign it in before I get… symptomatic.” He tossed the empty tube down the hall, absently rubbing the vein.

It helped, but not by much. Fuck, he might need a third.

“Do you—”

“What is that?” Alex demanded, sitting up. It took obvious effort, and from the way his spine curled a little, it must have hurt like hell. “What _is _that!?” He rolled onto his knees tried to crawl forward, painfully slow, toward the discarded syringe. He was riddled with bullet holes, his back a riot of cavernous exit wounds. He left shiny, wet smudges of black everywhere his body touched the floor.

“It’s not for you,” Cross leaned his head back against the wall. “It’s empty, anyway.”

Alex stopped for a minute, and then changed directions and dragged himself toward him instead, stopping when he met the wall Cross was leaned against. “Good,” Alex slurred, rolling onto his back to catch his breath. “Smells _good.”_

Jury had quickly backed away at his approach and was looking between them in a panic. Cross was too exhausted to be wary and just gave a weak laugh, lifting his flayed arm to watch his mangled flesh slowly knitting itself back together.

“It does, doesn’t it?” he agreed, and his mouth was working a little better, too. He knew from experience that the eye would take a bit longer to regenerate, being as delicate and complicated as eyes were, but relief was spreading fast through his muscles and his cracked ribs ached a little less already. “I always thought it smelled like strawberry syrup.”

Jury wrinkled her nose and shook her head. “Ew, _no_. It _stinks, _are you kidding me? It’s like… like gasoline and a dead body at the same time.”

Cross frowned. To him, the smell of the medicine had always been cloyingly sweet, intoxicating like wine, but thick and smooth like honey. He always had to fight this silly urge to just drink it, but he didn’t know if it would work the same if he did.

Alex reached out, trying to blindly snag the remainder of it from the pouch in Cross’s lap.

“No,” Cross scolded him like a child, holding it above his head with the arm that still functioned. “What part of _viral suppressant_ don’t you get, virus? I think this would do you more harm than anything right now.”

“Please?” Alex made an anemic attempt at a smile, but with the mess his face had become, it was far from persuasive.

“Give it to me,” Jury held out a hand, still looking unnerved being that close. “I’ll keep it out of his reach.”

“Smells good. Please?” Alex said quietly from the floor, not lifting his head. His tone was that of a four-year-old asking for a treat, and maybe that wasn’t too far off base.

Cross’s hand halted midair, and then he pulled it away from Jury’s outstretched palm. “Maybe one wouldn’t hurt.” He mused.

The doctor’s eyebrows shot up to her hairline and she made an exasperated noise. “Captain, _look_ at him!”

“That’s exactly my point. Why does he want it so bad?” Cross pondered. “He's not even trying to eat _me_ anymore. I’ve never seen him so interested in something that wasn’t alive.”

That made Jury jump a little, and she had to turn away for a moment to take a deep breath.

Cross held it up above Alex’s head, and waved it back and forth, watching Alex turn to follow the motion a half a second late, since he couldn’t see it. He’d worn himself out again, though, and he wasn’t even grabbing for it anymore. “Maybe I should give him one, just to keep him calm.”

Jury put her hands on her hips. “Didn’t you just say it _killed_ the virus?” She huffed.

“I actually have no idea what it does or what it even is,” Cross admitted, extracting one of the syringes and toying with it idly. “Just how bad it feels when I miss a dose and what I was told. Gentek doesn’t really have a great track record for honesty, and they were pretty tight-lipped about the details to begin with, so it could be fruit juice, for all I know.” He watched Alex for a moment, who was still panting on the floor, little whines escaping his mangled face every few breaths or so. “Nothing about our plan went like I expected it to. Alex is our best bet at this point; we won’t get out of here alive without him in the fight.”

“So why would you give him something that will make him worse?”

Cross considered his reply for a moment, working through the logic in his head while he kept turning the syringe over in his hands thoughtfully. “He’s only survived for as long as he did because he did what the virus wanted him to do. Blacklight is smart. It tends to have a pretty good idea of what it should and shouldn’t eat. Its instincts are strong and usually right.” He tilted his head. “_Usually_.”

“Cross,” Alex pleaded. He was barely even paying attention to their conversation, his head turned away as though he were staring off into space, but he obviously wasn’t going to let this go. “Please.” He twitched. _“Please.”_

Jury leaned over to look at him. “So why is this different?” She asked.

“It isn’t.”

He plunged the needle into the center of Alex’s chest and pumped the fluid in.

_“Cross!” _Jury tripped forward, too slow to stop him.

Alex arched his back off of the ground, a high keen tearing from his throat as he scrabbled at the injection site with clawed hands. He collapsed back onto the floor, moaning and spitting out feeble obscenities in half a dozen languages.

For all her fear, Jury’s first reaction was to try to dash forward as though she wanted to try to help him. Cross raised a hand to keep her from getting too close. “Wait,” was all he said.

Alex kept sucking in frantic, gasping breaths, still whimpering and making weak noises of pain. After a moment more, he rolled onto his side, shuddered, and then started gagging up horrendous amounts black blood, spitting it out onto the floor.

“Captain!” Jury cried with horror, watching him struggle with tears in her eyes.

“Just give him a second.”

“But—"

Alex, out of nowhere, sat bolt upright, gasping, “what in the name of _holy fuck—” _

“There he is,” Cross almost laughed with relief. “We’re back in business. Hey, Alex. What’s going on with you?”

“Jesus fucking _christ_, Cross! What was that? Do you have more?” The hole in his head was slowly coming back together into something that resembled a face, and when he had eyes again, they were clear, alert, and _hungry. _“Cross, if you have more, I need it_ right now.” _

Cross deposited three more into his hands. Alex didn’t even bother with injecting them, he just pulled them directly into center mass, dissolving them. There was a moment of inactivity, and then a soft sound pulled from his mouth, his whole body locking up for a minute before he collapsed, falling against the wall with a soft thud and sliding until he landed back on the floor.

“What the hell _is_ that stuff?” He panted.

“Good question,” Cross answered with a snort.

“Does anyone want to tell me what the fuck just happened?” Chrissy demanded, a little hysterical.

“No idea,” Cross shrugged.

“Zilch.” Alex puffed against the wall.

She threw her hands up, turning and stomping away. She ran a hand down her face and took a few deep breaths, and when she came back, Alex sat up again, blinking at her. Recognition dawned on his face, and he lowered his head and gave an awkward wave. “Uh... Hi. Guess we never got properly introduced.”

Jury just stared at him.

“Right. I’m Alex, but I guess you know that, now... uh. Sorry.” He winced. “You know. For, uh… trying to eat you... sorry.”

She didn’t take her eyes off of him, but she didn’t answer either.

“Right,” Alex cleared his throat. “Cross, can you walk?”

“Probably.” Cross jerked a shoulder. “You?”

“I… I think so.” Alex dragged his hands up the wall to pull himself upright. “Oh… _fuck.” _He closed his eyes, holding himself steady against the wall. “…don’t touch me.”

“Noted.” Cross agreed easily, holding out four more red syringes. “Here. Want more?”

“I’ll take whatever I can get.” Alex said gratefully, reaching out and then stopping. “What are these?”

“They’re usually for me.” Cross answered, thrusting them forward in offering.

“Do you _need_ them?” Alex frowned, eyeing them with longing but not moving to take them. “Do you have more?”

“Those are the last ones I have on me, for the moment.”

Alex hesitated a second longer, then took one.

* * *

Dana jumped out of her skin when someone shouted at them from a little ways up the hall.

Beside her, Reza whipped around and planted himself in front of Mia, who had either taken the hint or had already imprinted on the man like a duckling, because she quietly and promptly hid behind him.

They all raised their rifles at once, only to drop them again an instant later when they caught sight of their captain.

“You’re alive!” Dana blurted, though taking him in now, that might have been a generous description. The man was pale, coated in his own blood, and his face looked like he’d gone a few rounds with a cheese grater. He was shadowed closely by a harried looking woman, burned and bloodied and bruised, but all of that got pushed to the back of Dana’s mind in a heartbeat.

She started forward threateningly. “Cross_, where is my br—” _

Something came barreling around the corner and plowed straight into her, sending her rocking on her heels and forcing the air from her chest in a huff. She stood frozen for a minute before she realized that she was now holding an arm load of Alex, who had wrapped himself around her like concrete and was currently doing his best impression of an exceptionally needy octopus.

“_Alex_,” her eyes welled up almost instantly.

Contrary to popular belief, and to his prickly, cold appearance, Alex was a great hugger. He didn’t usually prefer to, since his diet as of recent years could only be described as woefully inadequate, and as a result, any prolonged contact with a human person tended to get him all riled up in ways he couldn’t always ignore. So she could count on one hand the number of times Alex had hugged her.

While they were both pretty short (at least compared to Cross) Alex still had a few inches in height on her. Usually, when she could coax him into giving her a hug, he drew her against his chest, resting his chin on top of her head and keeping her in a strong embrace as though determined to protect her from the entire world. Wrapped in arms that could crush the life out of her with barely a twitch, she rarely felt so safe in her entire life.

This time Alex had his arms under hers, his shoulders curled in and his head tucked into her neck, seeking shelter instead of providing it. She felt something in her back pop with how hard he was holding onto her, but it would take a crowbar to pry her away from him now.

“Hey, you.” She said softly, barely a breath, but certainly loud enough for Alex’s ears. “Don’t ever do that again.”

“Won’t,” he barely managed, his voice rough.

“You alright?” She could feel him shaking like a leaf. Dana had no idea if he was crying, or if he _could _cry, but she held him tight anyway, keeping his head down with a hand in his hair, just to make sure the Wisemen wouldn’t see him break before he could collect himself.

“Am now.” Alex answered. “You shouldn’t be here, it’s so dangerous, but I’m so _fucking glad to see you.”_

She closed her eyes and squeezed him tighter. “Alex, I'm so sor—”

_“Fuck_, captain!” One of the Wisemen pointed. “You look like shit!”

“Thanks for that, Ness.” Dana could see Cross glaring at them irritably with his remaining eye. “I really needed the reminder.”

Dana didn’t pull away from Alex until he reluctantly let her go, but he didn’t leave her personal space. “Cross,” she put a hand over her mouth as she took in the state of him. He looked even worse up close. “What happened to your face?”

Cross’s eye flicked to Alex and then away. “It’s not important right now.”

In the same breath, Alex averted his gaze.

_Oh, no._

The silence must have gotten too awkward, because another of the Wisemen spoke up. “Glad to see you in one piece, Zeus.”

Alex’s head snapped up. “Ah. Hey.” He glanced around. “I see the whole team’s here… though not Jameson. Where is he?”

“Playing getaway car,” Cross answered. “He’s with Clara.”

Walker was looking over her captain with concern, but she eventually turned back to Alex. “Zeus.” She nodded at him, then gestured vaguely. “Sorry for all this shit.”

“I know,” he waved her off. “Vasquez told me everything. Or, rather, he showed me—” He stopped, eyes locked on the middle of their squad. “Is that her?”

Dana followed his gaze, and then confirmed, a little shamefaced. “Yeah, that’s her.”

Alex pushed through the group toward her. “Hey,” he said softly, dropping to one knee until he was at eye-level with the little girl. Her eyes were wide as saucers. “I’m Alex.”

She was half hiding behind Reza, but she held out her hand politely. “Mia Turner.” She didn’t even stutter.

“Nice to meet you, Mia.” He said, shaking it with solemnity. “Don’t be afraid, okay? We’re busting out. You and me, we’re jailbreaking. Like outlaws in the wild west. It’s gonna be great.”

“Pirates are more fun.”

He snapped his fingers, a smile pulling at the corner of his mouth. “God damn, you’re right. I don’t have a boat, though. Are airplanes okay?”

She giggled. “Yeah, that’s okay. As long as you can sing.”

“I definitely can’t, but I think Clara can. You’ll like her. She’s waiting for us outside with an airplane. Just stick with these guys and the dude over there that looks like a skunk, and I promise we’ll get you out of here just fine. You’re in good hands.” When he stood up and turned back around, everyone was staring at him open-mouthed, besides Dana and Cross. “What?”

“Uh, nothing.” Walker cast a glance to Daniels, who looked just as mystified. “That was just really weird.”

Alex shot her a rude gesture, making sure his body kept it out of Mia’s line of sight.

Dana shook her head minutely at the Wisemen behind her brother’s back. “Can we go, now?”

“Please,” Jury agreed instantly.

“There’s just one tiny problem with that,” said Walker. “All of the entrances and exits are completely surrounded by heavy artillery.”

Cross pushed past her to the window to look out. “Shit, she’s right. We’re not going to make it out that way, not even with Alex playing escort.”

“I’m terrible at escort missions anyway,” Alex shrugged. “That was always your job.”

“So what are we going to do?” Jury wanted to know, looking out the window as well. “There’s _tanks _down there! Are those—”

“Don’t worry, I don’t see any thermobarics. To bring a building of this size down, they’re going to need more than a few.” Cross assured her.

“Yeah, well, it doesn’t matter what kind of tank it is, it’s going to kill us all the same.” Dana said. “We can’t go out the doors on the ground level.”

“And unlike Zeus, we can’t just jump out the window.” Said Ness. He didn’t seem anxious, but if the way Alex snapped his head around to look at him was any indicator, he could smell his fear. “We don’t really have any options. Not unless we can get the transport up to the roof without it getting blown out of the sky.”

“I’ll take care of the exit.” Alex cut in grimly, tearing his eyes away from the Wiseman. “We’re not getting out of here any other way.”

Dana slapped him on the arm. “Alex, this place is crawling with soldiers! You wouldn’t get more than five steps out the door before they blew you to pieces!”

Alex shrugged. He looked wrung out. “So I won’t take the door.”

“There’s too many of them!” Dana grabbed his hand, and he balked, but she didn’t let go, and neither did he.

“Not a problem.”

“Alex, don’t be ridiculous.” Cross chastised. “The only way you’d even get close is if you somehow managed to take all of them out at… at once.” Alex just stared at him, and it finally hit, what he was offering. “Alex, _no. _Absolutely not.” When he only got a glare in return, he insisted. “You are in no shape to pull off a Devastator, are you crazy?!”

Dana jerked her head around to him in alarm, and Dr. Jury was looking between them nervously.

“What’s that?” Asked the doctor.

Alex sighed. “Cross is dramatic and likes to name things, but he’s not very creative.”

“_Alex_—” the captain began.

He ignored him. “It’s big, loud, and devastating. Usually leaves a bit of chaos afterward. It’ll buy you time to get to safety.”

“Yeah_, us_.” Cross was quick to point out. “Not you. Alex, they have twelve tanks watching the front doors alone! It’d have to be a pretty big one, bigger than you’ve ever tried before, and that isn’t safe even under normal circumstances. Even if you succeed, you won’t even be able get up and run.”

He threw up his hands. “So scrape what’s left of me off the pavement and haul ass!”

“You’ll eat me as soon as I get within ten feet!”

“_Eat_?” asked Mia quietly, tugging on Reza’s sleeve. “What are they talking about?”

Cross tried to ignore them, letting Reza scoop her up and calm her with gentle words. The rest of the Wisemen were watching the exchange with disquiet, but no one commented. Reza cast a loaded look at the little girl in his arms while he carded gentle fingers through her dirty, matted hair.

“Reza,” Alex cut in, sounding irritated. “This floor is clear of hostiles. Why don’t you go take Mia for a walk, real quick?”

Trying not to look to relieved, Reza nodded. “Yeah, come on.”

Mia looked like she wanted to argue, but she was probably too afraid.

Everyone waited a few seconds for them to round the corner before Alex twitched as though listening to something they couldn’t hear. “That’s… a good idea.”

“Alex?” Now it was Cross who was confused. He glanced at Jury, who shook her head and made an _I don’t know _gesture.

“She— Never mind. Cross, that red shit, whatever it is. Have you got more somewhere?”

“I have some in an offsite bunker.” Cross glanced out the window again, down at the awaiting army. “I have three vials of it on me right now, and I’d give them to you in a heartbeat if it would get us out of here.”

“That won’t be enough. Do they make it here?” Alex demanded, twitching again.

Cross was getting worried. “I think so, but I don’t even know what it is or where we’d find it.”

Dana was starting to feel that she’d missed something. “What are you guys talking—"

“Look, whatever it is, it’s keeping me sane. I snatched up a few soldiers before you found me, but I’m still weak. I haven’t been this light since the day I was born.” Another twitch, annoyance. “If it weren’t for whatever you hit me with, I wouldn’t be able to talk to you. By all rights, I should be _out of my mind_, Cross. I should have eaten you by now, and then spent the next few hours rocking back and forth on the floor, chewing on my own tongue.” He waved a hand, almost sarcastically. “But look! I’m right here!”

Cross threw his hands up. “Okay, as grateful as we are that you haven’t spilled your marbles everywhere, could you get to the point?”

Alex’s mouth thinned with frustration. “If I can get ahold of some more of that stuff, a whole lot of it, maybe it won’t stop me from blowing myself to smithereens, but it might keep me cognizant when I lose most of my biomass.”

“Alex!” Dana reproached. He ignored her.

“_Maybe? _It’s too risky! The whole point of this was to rescue you! If you die here—"

“If I die, then I_ fucking die_, Cross!” He snarled, stunning everyone into silence. “It would be one thing if it was just me and you, but you had to go and bring Dana too! What the fuck is wrong with you?!” He jabbed a finger at Cross’s chest, ignoring the way the man flinched and looked away. “Neither of you should have even come in the first place, and I’m not prioritizing my imitation of life over her _real_ one. Or the doctor’s, or Mia’s, or Clara’s. I am most _definitely _not going to be responsible for the extinction of another whole team of Wisemen.” Alex growled. “No unnecessary death. I’m done with it. Either come with me, or get down to the first floor and get ready to run like hell, because I’m getting them out no matter what.”

“Alex,” Dana looked like she wanted to cry again. He squeezed her hand, then let go and pulled away.

“Captain, I don’t like it, but it sounds like our only option.” Walker cut in, low but confident. “We don’t have time to debate it and we can’t bank on half-measures. If Mercer says he can do it, he probably can. He knows his limits better than anyone.”

Jury wrung her hands. Her glasses were skewed slightly on her nose. “But if it isn’t enough—"

Cross refused to even entertain this idea. “No, Alex, I can’t let you do that. Please, there has to be something else.”

“You can’t stop me!” Alex spat, pissed. “You aren’t calling the shots here! We wouldn’t even be in this mess if it weren’t for—” He stopped, closing his eyes, and then just sighed. “Jury, if Gentek engineers that stuff, what levels do you think they would do it on?”

Jury paled a little at his direct attention. “I don’t—"

“_What_ _floor_, doctor?”

“It… It has to be biological.” She thought about it. “Probably the first three floors? That’s where all of the general production area is, for the biotech stuff. All the equipment is too heavy to keep up higher, and some of them run a single machine from the third floor back down to the first, so it might be hard to find what we’re looking for.”

He nodded. “I can probably scent it out if we get close.”

“Alex, what’s going on?” Dana was torn between anger and tears. “Please, whatever you’re thinking of trying, could you just…” When she caught his expression, she trailed off.

His face might as well have been made of stone, but she knew him well enough to read the way he held his shoulders, the tightness of his jaw, the shadows that passed over his eyes. “Take Mia and get down to the first floor exit. West side.” He ordered, calm and even. “Stay there. It’s going to get very loud. Wait three seconds after it stops, then run.”

“Alex, no! Please, don’t do this,” she pleaded. “I just got you back. We’ll figure something else out.”

He just wrapped his arms around her again, cutting off her protest as his hold on her tightened for an instant. “Stay. _Please.” _He said gently. He drew back and stared at her face for a second, taking her in as though he was trying to commit her to memory. Then he turned away. “Cross, either you’re coming with me or I’m leaving you here.”

Cross waffled a moment longer and then straightened his spine, declaring gravely, “I’m with you, Alex. I won’t make that mistake again.”

“I’m coming too,” said Jury a little falteringly. “I’ll show you how where to look.”

“Okay,” Alex answered, not looking him in the eye, not looking back at his sister. “Let’s go.”

* * *

“This is the ISO 5 area. We should be wearing suits in here, guys. I’m so going to lose my job.”

Cross was reading the signs outside each room, giving each one a mildly interested glance inside before continuing. “…column storage, visual inspection, media formulation… None of this looks like—”

Alex had been humming quietly to himself the whole time, first with _Wish You Were Here _and slowly morphing into _Us and Them. _It was so bizarre that Cross worried about him a little.

Or maybe a lot.

Then Alex fell silent, halting in front of a small, plain door. “This one, it’s in here.”

“Retain storage? No, Alex, I don’t think…” Dr. Jury trailed off, because he was already pushing his way through the airlock, sniffing.

“Oh, fuck _yes_, this is it!” Alex darted into the room, not stopping to turn on the lights, leaving Jury to do it for him. He strode purposefully through half a dozen shelves, all of which were lined with meticulously labeled boxes, toward the back to another small steel door. He didn’t bother trying the handle, instead just kicking it through the frame.

“Alex, you… huh.”

Inside was another laboratory area, self-contained but larger than either of them thought could fit. Half of the room was full of shiny metal stability chambers and walk-in freezers, and the other half was lined with heavy equipment and lab benches. Like everywhere else, it had been evacuated in a hurry. There were open notebooks scattered everywhere, pages half-filled, and dozens of chemicals and samples left out to spoil in the open air.

“Where,” Alex hissed, impatient out of nowhere. “_Where is it?” _He paused again in front of a lab bench before jerking his head away and stomping around, sniffing.

Dr. Jury was looking a little unnerved, so Cross called out, “hey, Alex, calm down a little, you’re kind of—"

“_Aha_!” He stopped in front of a huge freezer, pushing open the door and dragging out a massive steel container, which was about the size of a small car. He wheeled it out into the warmer area and gave it a sniff. “In here,” he said with a wild little grin. “It’s too cold right now, but oh, fuck, this is gonna be _awesome_!”

“Alex, calm down, okay?”

He shot Cross a dark look, but when his eyes landed on Jury, he took a deep breath. “Right, sorry. It’s just—” He gave a delighted little shiver. “You have no idea how much better this smells than what I’ve been eating for the past few years.” Jury squeaked a little in alarm, and he hurriedly elaborated. “Cows and dogs, Chrissy. Cows and stray dogs.”

“Blacklight wasn’t made to replicate in non-humans.” She managed to answer, but her voice was pitched a little high.

“I _know, _trust me.” Alex shook his head. “It fucking sucks. It’s like if you could only eat a handful of leaves every single day for the rest of your life. Maybe it keeps you alive for a while, but barely, and at some point you get sick from malnutrition. It’s unfulfilling, it tastes bad, it isn’t what your body wants. But _this!” _And Cross had to smile at his excited little dance. “This smells better than _you_ do! This smells like the biggest, richest, sweetest dessert that ever existed and it’s all _mine_.”

“Well, let’s get this show on the road, then.” Cross said.

“It’s still really cold,” Alex dithered. “But fuck, I can’t even complain.” He ripped the metal clasp off of the lid without undoing it, and unsealed it with a little flourish. The entire thing was hollow, filled with a viscous, crimson fluid.

The smell was incredible, it was true. It was like rich molasses, sweet and tart and fresh like cut strawberries. Cross found himself stepping forward unconsciously as well, and he had to give himself a little shake to snap himself out of it.

Jury turned away, gagging. “That smells awful.”

Cross and Alex shook their heads. “No, it doesn’t.” They said at the exact same time, sharing a strange little moment before Alex climbed up on top of it. His form slowly liquefied into something that looked less like a person and more like a gigantic black worm. It coiled up for a second and then slid itself into the container, shuddering when it made contact.

Jury and Cross glanced at each other when a truly ridiculous slurping noise came from within.

“Don’t look at me,” Cross coughed. “Dana’s the one who taught him table manners.”

“What even_ is_ this stuff?” Jury wondered, meandering toward the benches. She thumbed through a notebook, tossed it aside, and started rummaging through desks. “Batch production records, operating procedures… maybe this one?” She mumbled, opening another book and starting to skim the pages.

“That’s what I was wondering, too. I never asked more than once or twice, because they tend to guard their secrets pretty jealously, but I’ve been taking it as long as I can remember—"

“Cross.” She had frozen, staring at one page as though it held the answer to everything.

“Yeah?” He stepped behind her uncertainly.

“I know why Alex likes this stuff so much. It isn’t a suppressant.”

“No? What is it?” He looked over her shoulder. “I… I don’t know what any of that means, Dr. Jury.”

“I don’t know how to explain it, because I don’t think I really understand. It’s a whole syringe of cells, nutrients, and fragments of DNA. It’s like the media we feed cell cultures, but specifically for Redlight and its derivatives, specifically to feed _viruses_. Thousands of human’s worth of…” She put a hand over her mouth, and Cross figured that he _really _did not want to know. “They shouldn’t even be able to preserve it like this, most of this stuff should be way too delicate… But you carry them around in a bag. How does it stay viable outside of a stabilized environment?” She started muttering to herself. “I don’t understand the half of this, it should be impossible, but… but it _works. _This is incredible. If they managed to patent some of this, they could rule the whole pharmaceutical industry for the next hundred years, live like kings. Why is this _here, _of all places...”

“Jury? What does that mean?”

“It… It isn’t suppressing the virus, captain. It’s _feeding_ it, kind of. It’s like,” she waved a hand. “Like a shot of a year’s worth of vitamins, combined with... I don’t know, a stimulant. Caffeine? Cocaine? No calories, not biomass, like he needs, but it’s no wonder he wanted it so badly. As malnourished as I’m sure he is, it would be irresistible.”

“That… doesn’t make any sense.” Cross said finally. “Why would they want to give me something that made the virus in my body stronger? Wouldn’t it make me sicker?”

“Maybe, but it also might be to keep it from eating _you_? But with nothing to check or suppress its growth, it would start eating you anyway…” She stopped, staring at him. “Unless…”

“Unless?”

She stared at him, then shook her head. “Never mind.”

“Come on, let’s hear it.”

“No, it was stupid.”

Another pause. “We could ask Alex about it. Or Greene, she might know.” Cross mused aloud.

She looked at him like he’d grown another head. “You... you mean _Elizabeth Greene? _How the hell would we ask _her?”_

“Ask Greene what?” Alex poked his head back out, his eyes bright. He didn’t bother changing forms again, opting instead to just tear his way through the steel and hop back out to meet them. The interior had been cleaned spotless. “Fuck, I’m cold!” 

“Was it everything you dreamed it would be?” Cross asked with good humor.

Alex turned to him, and a wave of red and black blurred his form for a minute before settling. “Yeah,” he said contentedly, then wiggled with a sudden overflow of energy. “But what did you want me to ask Greene?”

“Is she awake?” He asked, not looking at Jury.

Alex hesitated. “Kind of,” he shrugged. “I think she’s pretty worn out, though. It's been a long day for both of us, so I’ve just been leaving her be. Is it important?”

An odd spike of guilt dug into him at the thought of waking her. “I...” Cross wavered. “No, not right now. We can talk about it later.”

Alex grinned at him, and it was such a weird expression on his face. His pupils were blown wide, and he seemed to be almost vibrating.

It really _did_ look like he was on cocaine. “Yeah, alright.”

“We’ve got a job to do, right? You sure you’re okay to pull this off, Alex?”

Alex's excitement seemed to evaporate. “I’m probably still a little light, but we don’t have another option.”

“You don’t have to.” Jury piped up, surprising both of them. “We can find another way.”

Alex smiled at her. “I’m good. I’ve got this.”

Cross gave him a dubious once-over. “Ready to go, then?”

Alex laughed. “As I’ll ever be.”


	16. Chapter 16

“You still don’t have to do this,” Cross said.

Alex just shook his head. He’d removed one of the windows from the upper floors, leaning out over them to peer at the troops below, scurrying about like ants. Cross had been watching him for a few minutes, and the longer Alex seemed to be mulling it over, the more worried he got.

“If you’re not sure about this—”

“No, it’s not that.” Alex glanced over his shoulder. “I’m just trying to decide which one to use.”

It did little to assuage Cross’s fears. “Well, the spikey one always did good on the tanks, right?”

He snorted at _spikey one. _“Yeah, but they’ve got a lot of ground troops, too. And a pair of choppers, but they’re low enough that I might be able to…” He trailed off, still thinking.

“Alex,” Cross started, “if this doesn’t work, I just…”

“Don’t,” Alex stopped him. “It’ll work.”

“Fine. I still need to say that, about all of this, what I—”

“Cross,” Alex turned back around. “I saw Vasquez’s memories. I know what they told you. I know what you said. I saw all of it. I _know_.”

“I’m so sorry, Alex.”

“Yeah, you should be. You’re a lying, manipulative mother fucker. You can make up for it by keeping my sister safe.” Alex stared at him for a moment before turning away. “I think killing your first team and almost ripping your arms off makes us about even, though.”

“No, Alex, it doesn’t.” Cross put his foot down, allowing a little bit of bite into his tone. “You didn’t deserve what I did. Nobody does, but especially not you. Alex, you deserve to be angry at me.”

“I’m not,” Alex’s shoulders dropped. “I’m just tired and I want to go home.” He scratched his neck a little awkwardly. “Can we start over?”

Cross hesitated, then smiled with the half of his face that he still had. “I still want to make this up to you, but for now, sure. That sounds good.”

They held each other’s eyes for a second longer before their little moment dissolved. Alex sighed, set his jaw, and turned back out to the window. “Alright. Head downstairs and meet up with the others. I’ll give it ten minutes, and then I’m doing this, so be ready to run like hell as soon as I’m done. Don’t wait for me, just get the others to safety.”

“I can do both.” Cross insisted. “I said I was getting you out of here, Alex, and I meant it. Even if I have to die for it.”

Alex narrowed his eyes. “Don’t you dare die for me, that would be really stupid.”

“Then you don’t get to die either, you hear me?”

Alex’s eyes slid away from his and he shifted uncomfortably. “I don’t plan to. Just… be ready to run.”

“Got it. Hey,” Cross hesitated in the doorway. “Good luck.”

* * *

_This is going to suck. _

When he counted the number of soldiers and weighed the odds in his head, Alex had to admit that his chances didn’t look good. He cared less about _his _chances and more about Dana’s (and everyone else’s) and that was what really bothered him about this whole thing.

He just couldn’t decide what he was going to do. If he did the one Cross called the Ground Spike Devastator, he’d take out all of the tanks for sure, but not enough of the ground troops, who he knew from experience would recover much faster than he did and start raining bullets on his head. But if he did the Tendril Barrage, (and he really had to come up with better names for those, because even thinking them made him feel like some kind of asshole) it wouldn’t do enough damage to the tanks to put them out of commission, at least not all of them. And at any rate, they would be shielding the rest of the men on foot just with their size alone.

If he ramped up the size of either of those moves, doubled them even, it still wouldn’t be enough just from a tactical standpoint, and he was running out of time. He had five minutes before he told Cross to be ready to go, and he didn’t want to risk the group hanging out by the doors for too long if the soldiers were still focused on them. He had to do this, but now, he wasn’t sure he could.

They just didn’t have any other options. It didn’t help that he was still massively underweight for this particular move, but no one else needed to know that. They wouldn’t have agreed to let him try.

Greene had been listening silently, and he could feel the warm, heavy stir of Her thoughts somewhere in his head. Since they’d broken containment he’d just been too tired to stifle Her, and he didn’t particularly want to anyway. She’d been mostly quiet, tucked somewhere in the back of his brain and recovering from everything they’d just gone through, but She’d also been surprisingly helpful. Using Cross’s medicine had been Her idea, after all, and _damn_ was it a good one.

He shivered at the memory. That stuff was incredible_. Ecstasy_.

Of course, She may have been offering Her assistance just so that he’d let Her speak at all, but it was a welcome bit of help that he couldn’t afford to turn down even if he wanted to.

And if he was honest with himself, the part of him that didn’t trust Greene had been shrinking steadily since this whole mess had begun. She’d been stronger than him on more than one occasion, and especially so when they’d been trapped in the tank, and She could have used any of those opportunities to take over, to force him out of his own mind and destroy him. She would have been justified, too.

But She hadn’t.

She also knew the chances they had of making it out of this alive, and yet She didn’t argue with his current course. Instead She lingered close behind his eyes, thoughtful.

_Decided? _She asked.

_No. I… this isn’t going to work, and they’re all going to die if I can’t do this._

_We are strong enough. Do not worry._

He shook his head, smiling a little despite himself. _You know that isn’t the problem._

_Isn’t it?_

Ah, yes. He’d missed the riddles. Greene could talk circles around him, and often did. He considered it a sign of improvement, though. She’d been barely even cognizant when he had released Her from Gentek all that time ago, too damaged and broken to manage anything besides animal rage and hunger. Now She was playing games with him. It was better, at least, than Her wordless urgings to build hives and consume his friends.

_Alright, Mother, I’ll play. _He answered Her wryly. _What do you think we should do?_

She told him.

“No fucking way,” he laughed out loud in surprise. “That’s crazy even for us.”

_Do not worry. _She insisted once more._ We are strong enough together._

“You’re nuts,” he informed Her. “How is everyone in my life crazier than me? Fuck, I’m the one with a million voices in my head!”

_Quiet now, _She said. _I keep them quiet for you._

And now he really wished he’d known that was an option. “You’re… thank you.” He said sincerely. “Really.”

_We will do this now, for them. For hive._

“Yeah.” Alex agreed. “For them.” He took a deep breath, wincing as he pulled on his biomass and drew it inside, gathering it into a painful and hyper dense core at his center. “Alright, we’ll go with your idea, even if it’s suicidal. This is going to hurt a lot,” he warned Her. “We’re going to die and it’s going to be fucking agony, so you know.”

_Everything hurts. Must make it worth hurt._

Jesus, but he didn’t have time to unpack everything She’d been saying today. He leaned out of the broken window, just on the edge, the wind whipping his hood back from his head in the open air. It felt amazing after being trapped inside for so long, and fuck, had it only been five days? It felt like months, years. So much had happened so fast.

He drew himself in tighter, feeling the way his body resisted him and tried to expand, the way it fought the uneven distribution with a confused scrambling of biomass. It was painful now, and it would have made for a decent enough Devastator on its own, but it wasn’t good enough for this. This was going to blow him apart almost completely, and he had to do _more. _

With a singularity inside, mercilessly crushing the heart of him and disassembling his human shape into something that more closely related a bloody jigsaw puzzle, he closed his eyes and let himself fall.

* * *

Cross himself had seen Alex’s Devastator moves up close and personal only three times.

The first had been used on him, a ruthless barrage of tendrils (this the name) that speared him through the gut and pinned his entire team like insects on a board. To this day, Cross had no idea how he’d survived it.

The second time had been a little later, after Cross had revealed himself as Alex’s informant and before the atomic bomb detonated over the ocean. He’d used it midair to annihilate a fleet of helicopters all at once, branding himself as the most powerful and terrifying being in existence and shattering the already brittle remains of Blackwatch’s island presence in a single instant.

The third had been a few days after that and out of nowhere, really, but this one was significant to him because it was the first time Cross had seen Alex had used a Devastator for someone other than himself. He had found Cross and his new Wisemen, so fresh and green that he was amazed they’d managed to survive even that long, and they’d been about to die.

They’d been encircled in the middle of the street, outnumbered by more monsters than they’d had bullets, back to back and ready to go out fighting. Then all of a sudden Alex had dropped from the sky like a messenger of god and pulled them all into a tight circle around himself with one long tentacle.

He’d turned around to look Cross in the eye, and with a voice like cracked stones he’d gritted out, “_Get down.”_

Cross remembered little of the actual event besides a noise like nothing he’d ever experienced before, louder than any explosion he’d ever heard in his life, and the eerie and dying screeches of the creatures subject to Zeus’s wrath. When he’d finally gotten back to his feet, checking his team for injury and trying to ignore the way his ears were ringing, Alex was not looking at them, preparing to leap off and disappear into the skyline again.

“What’d you do that for?” Walker had huffed, having a hard time finding her feet.

“You can’t die yet, I still need you to bring me McMullen." Alex had shrugged at Cross, his nonchalance doing little to mask the pain and exertion in his body language. He darted up over the edge of a nearby roof and vanished, the whole thing having taken less than a minute.

That moment went down in Cross’s memory as one of the most terrifying of his long life. He’d thought nothing could beat the sound of it, the roaring of death that passed intimately close but harmlessly right above his head. He’d had a few nightmares about that one, as well.

The fourth time beat that moment by a long shot.

He’d collected Dr. Jury a few minutes after leaving Alex behind, trying to ignore the taste that left in his mouth after all that they’d gone through to find him again, and he had barely regrouped with the others for long enough to exchange a handful of words before Alex hit the pavement.

Cross was lucky (or unlucky) enough to have happened to be looking that direction when he made impact, harder than a meteor, hard enough to drive the breath from the entire world. The ground shook like an earthquake, the building above their heads creaking dangerously as Alex performed the move Cross had been aware of but hadn’t seen personally yet.

The smoke cleared, if only from the force of the shockwave, and Cross had a pretty clear view of Alex, or something that was black and red and Alex-shaped, burrowing his fists into the concrete and forcing himself through it, launching massive spikes that thrust through the earth with impossible ease. They were thick as trees and a shiny, lacquered black, and they drove through the undersides of the tanks one-by-one in rapid succession with unerring accuracy, bypassing their armored hulls entirely.

The sound of it was immense, like Niagara Falls and a thousand jet engines all tearing through the air in unison, like all of the demons in hell bellowing in rage, and it just kept going. It was more than Alex should have been capable of, more than any of them had ever seen. He could hear Mia screaming.

The tanks were lifted from the ground with the force of their impalement, elevated high and clearing the area further, revealing the hundreds of ground troops positioned all around them, quickly recovering from their shock and levelling their weapons to fire.

Cross’s heart stopped. Alex had seemed so assured, so certain, and yet…

He had _failed_.

The group behind him was shouting incoherently, and he thought he heard Dana yell what could have been a curse or a plea or anything in between. Cross wasn’t listening, because that was when he noticed something was wrong.

Normally, this would be when Alex would withdraw as much biomass as he could recover, since he would have expended almost all of it in that one strike. By now he should have yanked it back in, vanishing the evidence of his hand in the mass destruction, should be _running, _but he wasn’t. With a roar and a gargantuan effort, Alex ripped his hands free of the concrete, abandoning precious biomass to the earth to die.

What the fuck was he _doing?! _

Alex didn’t even try to stand. He fell forward onto his belly for a moment, his body now nothing more than indistinct, squirming darkness. Then he forced himself back up to his hands and knees, heaving great breaths, his head down before his body tensed and rippled and—

_Exploded_.

With the tanks still hanging in the air and neatly out of the way, this time it was the tendril barrage that ripped through and past the still-standing ground spikes, spearing the soldiers that surrounded him and absolutely obliterating their forces. There was a spray of gore from all sides, and the streets ran red and black with blood, mingling dust and debris in a gruesome crimson mud slide. The ones that didn’t hit soldiers instead collided with the ground spikes, bringing them tumbling down and dropping the flaming wreckage of a dozen tanks back to the earth with a cataclysmic series of thunderous crashes.

The tendrils, ropey and thick like steel cables, quivered in the air for a few seconds, lingering as though suspended by an unseen force. Then they dropped limply to the ground and dragged themselves back into Alex, whose body was emaciated, mangled, full of holes and barely even human anymore. He didn’t have an arm on one side of his body, or even that half of his torso, for that matter. There was hardly anything left of him.

He collapsed on the spot like a marionette with cut strings, and went still.

“The crazy motherfucker did _two of them!” _Ness shouted, breaking the strange spell of silence that had fallen over them.

_“RUN!” _Cross roared, shoving Dana and Jury out the doors, which now hung crookedly from their frames. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Reza scoop Mia up into his arms and sprint out, one hand cradling her head against his neck so that she wouldn’t see what Alex had just done.

Dana stumbled forward, veering to run to her brother. “Alex!” She screamed, her voice cracking. “_Alex!”_

Cross barely managed to snag her arm before she reached the fallen virus, swinging around and throwing her in the opposite direction. _“Run!” _He ordered again. “I’ve got him! Get Mia and the team out of here!”

Dana hesitated for a second, and it was far too long. Her face crumpled with anguish.

“Go!” Cross told her again, giving her a shove. “The longer you stay here, the less time I have to help him!”

She vacillated for long enough that Daniels and Ness grabbed her bodily, hauling her along while Morgan kept her rifle up, warily picking off the troops that were still miraculously standing. Though it wasn’t like any of them were in any kind of shape to fight, she wasn’t the kind of person to take chances.

Dana allowed herself to be dragged away, following the team toward their rendezvous point with one last backward glance full of grief.

Cross didn’t have the time to watch them go, to make sure they made it to safety. He dropped to his knees, leaning over Alex.

“Hey! Wake up, we have to go!” He shook him, flinching and snatching his hands away when Alex’s body shuddered and writhed with hungry tendrils. He barely even had a definite shape anymore, just a skeletal structure, a vague collection of spindly limbs, and maybe a face, but he was lying face-down, so Cross couldn’t see.

“Come on, buddy, come on! Get up, you son of a bitch!” He dug his hands under him, trying not to think too hard about what he was doing, and flipped him on his back. “Wake _up_, Alex! We have to run!”

Alex stirred, and for that moment Cross’s heart soared with hope. It was dashed when the virus merely blinked up at him with eyes as black as an oil slick, and then closed them, falling still again.

_Fuck, fuck, fuck! Oh, please, don’t eat me. Please, do not fucking eat me. _He begged, wondering if somehow Alex could hear him through the hivemind, and praying that he might.

“Alright, alright,” he breathed, bending over to drag him upright, pulling his alarmingly light body into his arms and ignoring the way he began to come undone in his hold in a mass of squirming tentacles. “Don’t you dare,” Cross warned.

Alex reformed moments later, and Cross was painfully aware of the hand that he was using to weakly snag onto the front of his uniform, shivering. His eyes were still entirely black, from pupil to sclera, but they were somehow still unfocused, bleary. Then they slid shut, and Alex went limp in his hold. He was barely even breathing.

“You’re alright,” Cross said, not sure who he was talking to. “You’re alright, I’ve got you. Just a few blocks and we’re free.”

He gripped him tight, held him close, and ran.

* * *

Because Murphy’s Law only applied to Cross specifically, it started to rain about two seconds into his jog back to the plane. They finally made it after about twenty more minutes of grueling effort, slogging along half-injured and completely soaked through to the bone, all while carrying an Alex Mercer who was only a few steps from death’s door.

His arm had healed over some, but not enough; even as light as he was, Alex’s body weight was enough to dig into his raw, delicate skin and tear it away, exposing blood and muscle and other things that were making this incredibly difficult.

Cross could only hope Alex was managing to pull some of it in, because he wasn’t moving much besides a weak shaking and a few times he had stopped breathing long enough to make Cross go absolutely apeshit with panic.

The plane’s cargo hold was open wide, and at his approach Clara came sprinting out and down the lowered ramp, a hand over her mouth in horror.

“He’s—” She was about to start crying. “He’s not—”

“He’s alive,” Cross hurriedly reassured her. “Just out cold.”

“Thank you, oh thank god!” She waved him inside. “Quickly, come on. Let’s get you dry. You’re—Captain, your _face_!”

Alex twitched in his hold, another of the little spasms of distress that had been afflicting him since the Devastators. “Not important. It’s healed enough. I’m not so sure about him, though.”

“Over here,” said Reza, dogged closely by Dana and Mia. “Lay him down.”

There was a low metal bench across one side of the interior, so they laid him lengthwise across it, buckling him into a set of harnesses so that he wouldn’t slide when the plane took off. It was probably uncomfortable, but Cross wasn’t really sure how long he could get away with holding onto him when Alex had already lost so much weight.

“Is he okay?” Cross could hear Mia ask Dana, her voice shaky with fright.

“He’d better be,” she answered.

Walker came out of the cockpit. “Pilot says wheels up in two minutes, but it’ll be a bumpy ride. Wind’s making everything difficult.”

“Could be worse.” Said Ness half-heartedly. “Could be raining.”

Cross heard someone smack him upside the head, Morgan, probably, and it was all he could do not to collapse on the spot in relief.

They were alive. They were all _alive._


	17. Chapter 17

None of them relaxed until they were airborne with Manhattan nothing more than a fading speck in the distance.

Usually in transit the Wisemen would spend their time bickering with each other or resting, if they were post-mission. At the moment, most of them were sitting around Mia, listening while she told them all some ridiculously long, winding story about some kind of half-pirate, half-octopus man going on an adventure in a magic flying ship.

It was kind of funny watching all of his grisly, battle-hardened soldiers, some of whom still had blood clinging to their uniforms, encouraging her with the kind of rapt attention an adult only ever musters for a child. Clara was helping, coming up with names or random plot twists to keep her interested.

As long as they kept her distracted, Mia wasn’t scared. Hell, she probably wouldn’t be scared anyway. The kid had an iron resolve, and Cross wished he could tell her that he’d seen actual military men with less courage than she had.

Dana was half-listening, but she had taken up a post sitting on the bench at her brother’s head, running her fingers through his hair. He would shift and twitch every now and then with a grimace or a quiet noise of pain, but otherwise he was mostly still and he hadn’t woken yet. Dana looked up as Cross approached, and she had dark bags under her eyes.

“Here,” Cross handed her a bottle of water. “You should get some rest.”

“Don’t tell me what to do,” she snapped, taking it from him.

He raised the eyebrow he still had, since he was still missing quite a bit of his face. He doubted it had the same effect, but he knew she got what he was trying to convey, anyway. “I seem to recall you yelling at me for doing the exact same thing.”

Dana shrugged and uncapped the bottle before she downed almost all of it in one go. “Don’t worry, I’m not going to need you to drag a fainting couch over here. I just want to be there when he wakes up.” When her brother gave another of those little tremors, his face scrunching up in his sleep, she shushed and calmed him until it passed.

“Dana, I don’t know how long he’s going to be safe to touch.”

That pissed her off. “So what? I won’t abandon—"

“Not asking you to. Just let me take your spot. He won’t be as upset if he eats me on accident.”

She eyed him. “That isn’t true.” She said.

Cross rolled his eye. “Right. I think he’d rather keep his sister from getting consumed than the guy that double-crossed him.”

“I must have been a really horrible person in my previous life to be burdened with such a lot of emotionally constipated men in this one.” She shook her head with a sigh, putting her head in her hands.

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

“You’re a grown-up. It’s not my job to follow you around and interpret everything he does.”

Cross pinched the bridge of his nose. They were getting off-track. “Whatever. You still haven’t slept since yesterday morning. It’s four a.m. Go, I’ll watch him.” When she opened her mouth to argue, he stopped her. “Just for a while. Get some rest, Dana.”

She glared at him with open suspicion, then glanced down at her brother. The anger and tension left her posture like air let out of a balloon. “It would be so easy to hate you.” She murmured.

Cross blinked; this wasn’t where he’d been expecting this conversation to go. “Uh… sorry?”

“After everything, after what you did, I want to hate you, so much. But Alex… I can tell _he_ doesn’t hate you. I don’t think he’s capable of it.”

“What?”

“He’s not the type to make big declarations,” Dana went on, staring at him evenly. “The people he cares about, the ones that stick around, they figure out pretty quick that he doesn’t always know how to say what he means. For him, _trust_ is equivalent to _love_. He doesn’t express one without the other. Can’t.”

He must look absolutely horrified, because Dana’s eyes grew sad. “He’s told you as much, hasn’t he? That he trusts you. And you had no idea what he really meant.”

“I…” Cross felt lost.

“He frets about you constantly. Worries you’re not sleeping, not eating, drinking too much. Did you know he would watch you, sometimes? Did you know that he goes by your hotel at night to make sure you were safe, even in a town in which nothing should have even come close to threatening something like _you?”_

“I… he… yeah,” Cross stammered. “He mentioned it. Where are you going with this?”

Dana frowned. “I don’t know,” she admitted. “I just… wanted you to know what you’ve done. What you have to fix.” Her eyes bored into his. “And you _will _fix this, not because I care about you, but because he does, and he deserves better.”

“I want to,” Cross told her, and he meant it. “If I had to die to take this back, I would.”

“I don’t want you to die,” Dana growled at him, suddenly furious. “You don’t get to take the easy way out, you absolute fucking chicken shit. You’re going to face what you’ve done, and you’re going to make it right, so help me, Cross.”

“I… I will. I’m sorry, you’re right. I’ll fix this. I promise.”

“Good.” She nodded, standing up. “Come get me if he wakes up. I mean it, I’ll kick your ass.”

Cross smiled weakly. “Cross my heart.” He promised.

She narrowed her eyes at him suspiciously until lieutenant Daniels shuffled closer and took her arm. “Come on, the seats are more comfortable than the benches, and I think we’ve got some blankets.”

“Alright,” She relented, allowing herself to be led away. “Fine. It’d serve you right if you got eaten, but do me a favor and don’t.”

Cross watched her go for a minute in a stunned silence, totally poleaxed. After a while he shook his head and took her place, settling in with a wince. “Man, I’d say she’s too good to you, but I think at this point you’ve earned a little pampering.” He said to Alex.

Alex shifted a little at the sound of his voice, straining weakly against his restraints in a way that was more instinctual than a voluntary action before he settled again.

Cross watched the team for a bit, smiling as Mia waved an arm animatedly, lost in whatever she was describing, catching Reza across the forehead with the back of her hand. The blatant shock on his face was truly hilarious.

“You did good, buddy.” Cross continued Dana’s work attempting to smooth out his hair, picking bits of concrete and metal from it as he went. “Real good. I don’t know how much it means, coming from me, but I’m… I’m proud of you.”

The engines hummed beneath him, a steady lullaby. Cross wouldn’t tell Dana, but he was wiped out, his eyelids heavy as anchors.

The plane hit turbulence, startling the group into laughter when Clara tipped forward with comically waving arms, only to be caught by Ness. He wagged his blonde eyebrows at her and she blushed, drawing herself upright with a hand on her mouth to hide her smile. That was Ness, alright.

The jostling made Alex wince and pulled a little whine from his throat.

“Easy, you’re okay.” Cross murmured, his eye sliding shut as his exhausted body finally gave in. “You’re fine, just sleep. I’m not going anywhere.”

* * *

Alex was in and out for a while, floating on a strange feeling of safety that he didn’t even try to piece together right now. He was only barely aware of feeling thoroughly wet and a little cold, of being carried by someone, their breaths warm and fast. He thought he remembered reaching up and tugging on their collar feebly, asking something.

“Dana’s fine,” they said, holding him tighter. “Everyone’s just fine. You did it. Hang in there, okay? We’re almost there.”

He didn’t know what he had done or where they were supposed to be going, but he just nodded and let himself drift away again.

The next time Alex awoke, it was with a jolt of fear. He wasn’t aware of anything but a deep, overpowering ache in his being, like he’d torn a muscle but everywhere, in every single cell of his body. He could feel his biomass struggling to maintain his form, shrieking at him in protest of whatever it was he’d done to it. Half of the viral particles felt broken, damaged, unresponsive.

He wished he could remember what he did to them, but anything that had hurt him badly enough to damage him on the cellular level was probably best not recalled.

He was lying on something cold and hard, metal. There was a loud humming of engines beneath him, the vibrations of mechanical travel. It was almost unbearably loud, too close, the frequency just shy of painful, and it had to be an airplane. He thought he might have been saying something, begging or just crying out incoherently, and he couldn’t tell if his body was unable to move or if he was simply unable to feel it struggling as he commanded it to. He wasn’t sure which would be worse.

Then there were warm, rough hands on his face, feeling his head, his cheek, his pulse points. Alex would have laughed, would have pointed out that he didn’t have a pulse, but the touch felt nice, so he let them keep doing it.

They pried open his eye at one point, bombarding him with a blur of light and color that he didn’t want to process yet, but then there was movement in front of his face, a single extended finger moving slowly back and forth across his vision. His eyes followed it lazily, because movement would always catch his attention no matter how tired he was.

Whoever had been handling him must have been satisfied with it, letting his eye fall closed and propping his head and neck up on something softer than the metal he’d been lying on.

_Sleep, _Mother said. _Safe now. I will watch them. Sleep. _

He didn’t argue.

* * *

Cross came to with a jerk sometime later, wondering what had awoken him. They were still flying, and it was still dark and rain streaked against the windows. Despite the weather, the ride was blissfully smooth and steady. Dana was still out, and so was Clara. The rest of the group was nowhere to be seen, so it was likely they were in the cabin bothering the pilot, Jameson. The thought made him smile.

Then something brushed against his thigh, and he realized what had pulled him from his nap; Alex was struggling, twisting in the restraints and huffing frightened breaths, or perhaps pained ones. Most likely it was both.

“Hey,” Cross shushed him quietly. “Don’t freak out, you’re fine.”

Either Alex couldn’t hear him, or he didn’t believe him. He had worked one arm free, gripping onto the metal bench with hands strong enough to warp the steel, which was a good sign. Now came the impossible task of keeping him calm.

“Alex, you’re safe. You’re okay.”

“No…” he mumbled in between breaths, eyes still closed and his forehead creased. “No, no,_ no, no_… no, _please._” He was breathing pretty fast, now.

Cross hovered over him. “Oh, shit, please don’t do that, okay? Don’t freak out, Alex. We're on an airplane and this is a really bad place for you to do that. You’re okay, I promise you’re safe.”

“Don’t want to… I don’t…” He sucked in a sharp breath and started babbling quietly, frantically. “Don’t let them, don’t let… I can’t, please, just—” Another gasp. “Hurts, please, I_— It’s cold—_"

Cross grabbed his shoulders. When Alex recoiled and struggled harder, he brought his hands higher to cup his face, making Alex fall still with surprise. “You’re going to wake up your sister.” He said, moving to his throat habitually to check his pulse before remembering that Alex didn’t have a circulatory system. He felt like an idiot.

After a moment’s hesitation, Cross peeled back one of his eyelids, surprised that Alex allowed him to do it. His eyes were moving a little, as though he were dreaming, but when he waved a finger in front of him, the black eye snapped to it and tracked it, if a little sluggishly.

Weird.

Alex jerked his head away after a second, his hand reaching up to snag Cross's arm and hold on tight enough to bruise. He whined again, arching his back as another tremor tore through him, and he pushed against the straps until Cross took the hint and carefully undid them, freeing him from his restraints.

It seemed to do the trick. Alex calmed, still breathing hard but rolling onto his side and curling up on himself, his arms wrapped around his chest as though it would break apart if he didn’t keep it together. The plane gave a little lurch and he winced and groaned, but without being strapped down, he at least he didn’t seem as afraid anymore.

Cross grabbed a discarded jacket off of the seat next to him, pulling it over Alex in attempt to keep him warmer. Then he scooted closer, gently guiding him up to rest his head on his leg. “Sweet dreams, buddy.”

* * *

Things had been worryingly quiet for almost three days before Franklin jumped to all four of his feet, growling and laying his ears back flat against this head. 

Jonesy grabbed him by the collar, trying vainly to calm him and unable to decide if he what he was feeling was hope or fear, but either way, it was making his stomach twist itself into knots. Franklin gave a booming bark, and Amir yanked open the front door, almost running smack into someone.

“Dana?” Amir asked when she caught sight of them.

She looked like she’d been through a wringer. “Hey, guys.” She answered, her voice tired and rough. She gratefully took the hand Jonesy offered when she bumped into the door frame. A second later an honestly pretty haggard looking woman, filthy and burnt and bloodied with a shock of purple hair, followed after, not bothering to introduce herself or make eye contact before pushed past them and she went inside.

“Dana,” Jonesy searched over her shoulder frantically. “Where’s—” His knees went a little weak with a combination of anxiety and intense relief when he spotted what was left of Captain Cross, who was closely shadowing their tutor.

_“Alex!” _Amir shouted, pushing past Dana and darting forward a few steps before coming to a halt fast enough to get whiplash.

Alex had definitely seen better days. He was walking gingerly, every step slow and deliberate, his gaze down to watch where he placed his feet. He had a towel, of all things, wrapped around his shoulders, and he was both upsettingly thin and somehow even more pale than usual. At the sound of his name he looked up, and his eyes, which were dull and murky, brightened some.

“Hey, guys.” Alex smiled wearily, and it wasn't his usual grin, cocky and familiar as he showed off neat, perfect rows of too-white teeth, but it was so genuine and thankful that Jonesy wanted to cry right there. “If you haven’t been studying while I’ve been gone, I’m gonna be pissed.”

Yep, he was definitely crying now. “Thank fuck, you’re alive!” Jonesy ran forward, stopping within a few feet when Alex locked up in anticipation. “Sorry, are you, uh…?”

Alex shook his head, a little sheepish. “Sort of, I… don’t really weigh very much right now. It’s a long story. Just don’t push me over.” He held his arms out, an invitation. He didn’t have to ask twice.

Jonesy darted forward, wrapping his long arms around him. 

Alex clung to him like his life depended on it. Against Jonesy, he was very small.

“_Fuck_, dude,” Jonesy scolded through shaky breaths, “you scared the shit out of us!” He felt fingers digging into the back of his jacket, almost desperate.

"Sorry." Alex murmured.

“What’d you go and do that for, you asshole?” Amir agreed, but his voice was uneven.

Alex laughed, pulling out of his hold with a little wince. “Excuse me, next time I’ll try not to get abducted.”

“Alex, did they... They didn’t…” Jonesy trailed off, realizing that he probably shouldn’t finish that thought out loud.

He didn’t have to. “Nah." Alex shrugged, too causal to be truly convincing. "They stuck me in a freezer and left me alone. It was pretty insulting, actually. I at least expected some waterboarding.”

“That’s not even funny. We’ve been worried sick.” Amir said seriously. “Cross wouldn’t let us come.”

“I would have killed him if he had.” Alex answered firmly and without pause.

“I’ll second that,” Clara announced, ducking around Cross to put a bracing hand on Alex’s elbow. 

“We’ve been sitting here for days waiting for you to come back.” Jonesy continued. “We didn’t know if you were alright because _someone _forgot to call and let us know what was going on." He shot that last bit accusingly at Cross.

“You’ve been waiting this whole time?” Alex glanced between them, a strange emotion twisting his face before he put a hand on his head and blinked a few times, like he was suddenly a little woozy.

Cross gave him a gentle push, making him sway even more. “We’re making a scene.”

“Cross,” Amir stared. “What happened to your eye?"

Alex's eyes darkened further, an alarmingly grim mood striking out of nowhere like a bolt of lightning. "Me."

Amir hesitated, then shook his head, probably deciding that he really didn't want to know. “Never mind this stuff right now. You guys look like hell. Let’s get you inside.”

Alex took a few more steps toward the house, Clara hovering at his side and Cross right behind him, but out of nowhere his legs seemed to give out and he stumbled. Cross was expecting it, catching him in one swift movement with an arm around his waist. Alex took a few tries to get his feet back under him before he eventually just gave up. He went lax in Cross’s hold, spent.

“Sorry,” Alex actually _apologized _for some god damn reason, and he was shaking again out of nowhere.

“Don’t. I’ve got you, just relax.” Cross hoisted him up and Alex gave a little cry, his face contorting for just a second before he loosened up again and was panting again. The captain gave him a second to recover before easing him through the doorway into the house, completely supporting his weight. “You’re alright. Home, now.”

“I’m... I don’t...” Alex slurred, gripping Cross's forearms with white knuckles. “I don’t feel so...” He slumped over, going entirely limp.

_“Alex?”_ Cross panicked for a moment. “Hey, Alex!” He shook him, then brought a hand down and hovered it under his nose, his shoulders dropping with relief when he found him still breathing. “He’s alright. He just passed out again.”

Amir and Jonesy shared an uneasy look.

“He slept most of the ride over. He’ll be okay.” Cross assured them, carrying Alex into the living room and gently depositing him on the nearest sofa.

“_Cryptobiosis_.” Said Amir quietly.

“He’s okay.” Cross insisted again. “Well… he will be.”

Jonesy stared daggers at Cross. “This is your fault.” 

Clara put a hand on his shoulder, and he shrugged it off with a jerky motion. “Jonesy, honey, come on,” she pleaded. “Don’t do this right now.”

“No, he’s right.” Dana chimed in. “He can’t undo what he did. Maybe it’s just one more nightmare to add to the pile, but one more is still one more. It should never have happened.”

“I know.” Cross looked down.

“But you brought him back.” Dana conceded. “You’re not even, and you’re not done, but we don’t need you here right now. Everyone’s going to need some time.”

“I… Right. I understand.”

“Go, now. Don’t send spies, don’t write, don’t call. Just… just go. If Alex wants to talk to you, he’ll reach out. In the meantime, there’s going to be fallout, and we have to deal with it, and if he has to worry about you on top of everything else…”

“You don’t have to explain it to me,” Cross said, holding up a scarred hand. “I get it. I’m going to—"

Alex gave a small noise in his sleep, clawing at the sofa. “No,” he whined, “no, no, no, _no, no...” _Small black tendrils began to snake out from under his skin, twisting and wiggling and digging into everything within reach. Clara was already right there, taking his hand and shushing him softly, gently, seemingly unbothered by the tendrils that worked their way up her arms and latched on like she was his only anchor in a storm.

Cross took a step forward automatically, not really certain what he was going to do but determined to help all the same, until Dana put up a hand and stopped him, making a little _shoo _gesture and holding his gaze with icy, unyielding anger. “Go away, Cross, before I make you.”

“Dana...”

“I threatened you, captain, in case you don’t recall. That shit I said? I can still do that. I want to, very badly. _Go. _Alex will call you later, if he wants to see you again, but do _not _push me right now.”

Cross sighed, averting his eye. “...Right. Sorry to have bothered you.”

He took a step back, looking around the room again before taking his leave. On the threshold he paused, unclasping a small black bag from his utility belt and dropping it on the coffee table by the door.

Then, without another word, he was gone.


	18. Chapter 18

Cross was listening, honestly he was, but...

Reza had been halfway through his report when Cross had let his eye wander to the paper calendar hanging by his window and he’d been hit with a realization like a bolt of lightning. Since then, he _may _have zoned out a little.

It had been four and a half years today.

Four and a half goddamn years since the start of this whole mess, and yet here they were. The infection was still going strong, even with its head cut off and even despite Cross’s best efforts, and the herculean efforts of everyone above and below him. Blackwatch was still but a shadow of the force necessary to keep control of the situation, and though the Red Zones were shrinking steadily—but slowly, so _fucking_ _slowly_— it seemed like there were new hives cropping up in every single abandoned building on the island every time Cross turned his back. Tack on the absolutely abysmal state of Manhattan’s public works and the Yellow Zones drawing the desperate and destitute like flies to honey, and the big picture was honestly looking pretty tragic.

The city was barely holding itself together, but somehow it had limped along thus far.

_Four and a half years. _Maybe he was getting old, but it felt like the blink of an eye. These days it was hard not to feel like a hamster on a wheel, running and running and getting nowhere. All Cross could do was ignore the futility of his own efforts and try to keep up with the turning until he exhausted himself, and he was afraid that that point was fast approaching.

He realized that what he had been doing for the past few minutes, staring off into space in a stony silence having his own personal pity party (or maybe a pity parade, since he never did anything by half measures) and he shook himself out of it with a little grimace.

His first lieutenant seemed to notice at the same instant he did, and trailed off into silence.

“You’re not listening, are you, sir?” Reza asked him wryly.

Cross brought a hand up unconsciously to scratch at his eyepatch before checking the motion and resting his arm on his new desk. “Lieutenant Farrokhzad, I apologize. Please continue.”

Reza looked him over dubiously. “Maybe my report can wait until tomorrow.”

Had it been anyone else, Cross would have felt his patience wear thin pretty fast. As it was, he knew he couldn’t fault his second-in-command for his concern, nor for his behavior. Cross knew he looked pretty rough. “Report.” He demanded, but it came out as more of a request. “That’s an order,” he added, to disperse any ambiguity.

Reza opened his mouth, then closed it. “If I may, sir,” he began, knowing full well that of course he may, “perhaps it can wait? You should go home and get some rest. We’ve got a lot to do tomorrow and it’s been a long day.”

Cross’s phone started ringing. He flipped it over and pushed it aside without bothering to check the caller ID. “Every day is a long day, lieutenant. I still have work to do, so I need your report.”

“It’ll be the same tomorrow as it is today,” Reza pointed out before pursing his lips. “You know how I know you haven’t been sleeping enough?”

“You mean besides your stalking?” Cross glared at him half-heartedly. “Do tell.”

“You’re calling me by my rank and not my name.” Reza informed him. “It’s creeping me out a bit.”

Cross intensified his glare. “I’m your superior officer,” he grumbled sullenly. “I’ll call you whatever I want.”

“Except that you don’t,” Reza answered breezily. “Don’t make me drag Daniels in here to mother you to death.”

That was a weighty threat; he was being serious, then, despite his facetious tone. “You wouldn’t dare.” Cross growled.

“Oh, but I would.” Reza was doing that thing with his face where his eyes grinned like mad even as he stayed stoic and composed. “I am clearly not above treasonous activities if that’s what it takes to serve my country, sir.”

“Reza—”

“Oh! He remembers my name! It's almost enough to make me take back my threat, but I really want to know what everyone would say if some lowly lieutenant dragged you out of your office by your ear."

His phone started ringing again. He startled, but didn’t even look at it. _"Reza."_

_“Sir._ Cross. _Oh captain, my captain.” _Reza sang. “Friend, buddy, pal, comrade. It’s been _six months. _When are you going to stop doing this to yourself?”

“Doing what?”

“Kicking your own ass.” Reza accused unflinchingly. “Punishing yourself silently isn’t going to make anything better.”

Cross narrowed his visible eye. “Is that what you think this is?”

“I know you, sir. I also know that maybe you should answer your phone every once in a while.” He pointed out mildly when it started ringing again.

“Mind your own business,” Cross commanded, a hand snapping out to grab his phone. He silenced it on the second ring this time, then turned it off. “Alright, fine. I’ve got one more meeting today and then I’ll take off for the evening. Happy?”

“That depends,” Reza flashed him a shit-eating grin, his teeth bright against his dark skin. “You gonna eat something too, or do I have to force feed you like a baby?”

“I’m putting you on spotting duty for a month,” Cross threatened. “With _Anders.”_

The smile dropped. “Aw, come on, sir, don’t be like that! I was just—”

“Cross?”

They both startled and turned toward the door. Cross jumped to his feet, holding out a hand. “Yes, come in! Thank you for meeting with me on such short notice, doctor.”

Dr. Jury waved him away with a snort. “Are we really going to stand on ceremony after everything we’ve been through? You can just call me Chrissy.”

Cross faltered, then he nodded and let his hand drop. “Fair enough,” he agreed, knowing that he probably wouldn’t. “Reza, go home. Tell James and Daniels that they can leave, too. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Yes, sir.” Reza looked reluctant, but he saluted smartly and turned to leave. As he passed Jury, he shook his head and rolled his eyes, making a little gesture back toward Cross as if to say, _can you believe this guy?_

“_Lieutenant.” _

“Yes, sir.” Reza replied automatically, then was gone.

Jury’s eyes followed him out. “What a shit head,” she commented, her voice thick with amusement. “You put up with that kind of behavior from your whole team, or is he a special case?”

“He’s special alright,” Cross laughed. “Just not in the way he likes to think he is.”

“Sure.”

“How you holding up?”

She shrugged. “I’m alive and I’m employed. What more could I want?”

“I’m sorry,” Cross said out of nowhere. “I could have gotten more people out before—”

“Don’t,” Dr. Jury shut him down firmly. “Don’t do that. We all lost good people. I’m just grateful we saved as many as we did.”

“You’ll let them know, of course, that they’ll be receiving compensation from Blackwatch for what happened, should they chose to reach out.” Cross handed her a small stack of business cards. “If I have my way, and I will, they’ll be taken care of for a long time. It’s the least I could do, for what they’ve lost.”

“I appreciate that very much, cap—” She stopped herself. “Right. I keep forgetting.”

“Call me whatever you like,” Cross chuckled. “The Wisemen still do.”

Jury let her mouth turn upward at the corners before she set her briefcase down onto his desk and snapped it open. “Anyway, I’ve had a long day and I’d like to get this over with.”

“Christ, you and me both.” Cross agreed vehemently. “I sent you all of the data I was able to wrangle. It doesn’t help that most of the team working on it is either dead or in hiding. Please tell me you have something to show for six months of work.”

She arched an eyebrow. “Is that the kind of confidence you have in everyone under your employ, _sir?” _It was laced heavy with sarcasm.

“You’re right, I’m sorry.” Cross sat down. “If you would, doctor.”

She withdrew a thick binder of printed reports on his desk, chewing on her bottom lip. When Cross reached for them, she moved to stop him, hovering her much smaller hand over his, soft and small in comparison, smooth as marble against the mess of scars his skin had become.

“Cross,” Jury averted her eyes for a second. “I know you want answers. I’ve got them, too, about your medicine, and…” She made a vague gesture at his eye patch, again making him want to touch it self-consciously. “Everything. But Cross, you need to be sure.”

Cross drew his hand back slowly. “What?”

“You need to be _really sure _that you want to know, because you can’t unring this bell, so I need to know that you really want it rung.”

Something in him began to crystalize, to harden into ice. “Explain,” he demanded, and then cringed with self-revulsion because he had sounded like McIntyre, just then. “Please,” he tacked on, a little sheepishly.

Jury wrung her hands.

She been looked better than the last time he saw her, almost six months ago. Her hair had grown back out, now neatly cut and free of burnt strands. The bruises on her neck had faded almost completely, and the only testament to her ordeal was a pink scar above her eyebrow and a larger one cutting across her lips. Coupled with her new, freshly-pressed and pristine white lab coat, courtesy of her new position, it was a look that suited her, Cross thought.

The shifty discomfort in her body language, however, suited her less.

She shot a surreptitious glance back toward the door, as though worried someone was listening in. “I don’t know if it’s better for you to read it or for me to tell you.”

Cross lost his patience. “Alright, stop fucking with me,” he snapped, and then barked, “_James!”_ He knew that there was no way the man had gone home yet without Cross explicitly ordering him to.

As he’d suspected, a few seconds later the Wiseman that had been lingering in the antechamber to his office now appeared in the doorway, glittering green eyes sharp with uneasiness. “Sir?” Jameson snapped to attention.

“Close my door and go home. That’s an order.”

“Sir.”

Cross knew him well enough to read the irritation in his reply, but he let him go without comment. Without the fresh air circulating through the open door, the room was stuffier, weighed down with words yet to be said.

“Jury,” Cross heaved a long-suffering sigh. _“Chrissy. _Please.”

The doctor ran a hand through her hair and dropped into a high-backed chair across from him. “Alright,” she opened her report to the first page. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

* * *

Cross let her talk for an hour before he decided he’d had enough.

He put up a hand suddenly, cutting her off mid-sentence, and said quietly, “thank you, doctor, you… you may go.”

Jury looked like she wanted to argue, or at least to demonstrate some concern or support, but to her credit, she simply nodded, picked up her coat and briefcase, and took her leave, but not before she paused at the door, her hand still on the knob.

“Don’t hesitate to call if you need anything.” She said.

“Alright.”

She made a face like she was going to say something else, shook her head, and left his office, closing the door behind her softly. The stack of files was still on his desk. Her data.

Her _proof. _

Cross waited calmly until he could hear the elevator down the hall give a cheerful little ding, and he knew he was alone. He gave it a few more minutes, just to be sure.

Then the ice that had been creeping into his heart shattered, and he let himself break.

* * *

Cross awoke the next day to a knock on his door, and it pissed him off immediately. Who the hell was knocking at this hour? Everything was fuzzy, but he could tell it was dark, so it had to be late. For all that his team had been nagging him to take a break, _now_ is when they come calling?

“_Fuck off,” _he slurred with a slight shifting his position to more comfortably rest his head on…

On his desk.

His body went tense with anxiety and confusion until the fuzzy memories of the previous night came rushing back.

He had a creeping suspicion that he wasn’t going to like what he saw when he opened his eyes, but he did anyway, even though he needed to practically wrench them open. He dragged his head up and noticed with a start that it was, in fact, _daytime, _but that was about all he could gather before his head started spinning and aching like it never had before. Given what he knew now, it didn’t make a whole lot of sense, but he was in no place to contemplate it right now because he was probably still drunk and his nose was full of acrid alcohol stink and someone was opening his door, oh _shit—_

“…Sir?”

Cross propped himself up heavily on his arms and turned his eyes down to his desk. “Yes, Megan, did you need something?”

Lieutenant Daniels was frozen in the doorway, and Cross had caught a glimpse of Reza and Walker over her shoulder, so he knew he was well and truly fucked.

Reza was openly staring at him, and Cross realized a second too late that his eyepatch was sitting on his desk and not on his face. He quickly snagged it and slipped it on, covering what he knew he couldn’t explain right now.

Daniels, being who she was, looked about two seconds away from coming up to hug him, but he knew he couldn’t let her. He had to keep them away, because if anyone was too good to him right now he’d come undone. If he broke down in front of his team any more than he already had, the damage might be irreparable. He’d shown enough weakness already.

“Sir...” Daniels’s tone was uncertain. “We had a mission.”

_Oh, fuck, that’s right. _“What time is it?” Cross’s voice was scratchy.

“Well past three in the afternoon.” Walker answered for her, sounding simultaneously accusatory and frightened.

Cross felt hot shame well in his gut. “I’m going to be busy, I’m afraid,” he said airily, with a brittle and hollow confidence. “Reza’s in charge. Can you accomplish this one without me?”

His voice cracked on the last few words. When he was met with only silence, he looked back up again.

Walker and Daniels were pale, visibly upset, but they nodded. “Yes, sir.” Daniels confirmed.

“Of course, sir. You can always count on us.” Walker said it so stubbornly that Cross had the strange urge to _cry _for a minute.

“Captain—” Daniels started, her voice gentle.

“Don’t,” Cross cut her off with more bite than he intended.

“What do you need, sir?” Reza asked nonchalantly.

What _did_ he need right now? If he thought it would do him any good, a bullet in his mouth sounded just about right, but he could never let his team down that badly. Fuck, how could he have done this to them? They needed him to be impervious, to be _Robert Cross_, to not let anything touch him so that they could wade into the most gruesome warzone on the planet and come out the other side still swinging. They needed to know that their captain was all in, one-hundred percent, but he’d just let them down already, hadn’t he? God, when had everything fallen apart?

“I need everyone to keep doing good work,” Cross answered after a few seconds spent to make his breathing even again. “Do what you’re supposed to do and keep making me proud. I’m just…”

He ran a hand down his face, wincing at the smell of alcohol on his own breath. He found himself gazing wistfully at the emptied bottle of bourbon that lay on its side on the corner of his desk before he caught sight of the mess.

Everything that had been on his desk was now on his floor, papers trampled and torn. A shelf that had been on the wall and lined with tiny, random items was in splinters on the ground as well, its contents scattered.

The mirror on the far wall was shattered. Cross realized that there was a trace of red blood on his knuckles, but whatever damage he’d done to his hands had long since healed over.

“I’m going to take a few days,” Cross said finally. “If you don’t need me.”

“We’ll always need you, captain.” Reza informed him without missing a beat. “But we’ll survive. Take a break, yeah?”

“A shower wouldn’t go amiss, either, sir.” Walker informed him cheekily. Even though her eyes were still a little too wide, Cross appreciated the attempt at levity, at normality.

He nodded listlessly. “Yeah. I’ll see you Monday.”

* * *

Cross made it to his apartment a few hours later, having taken a subway (that he promptly fell asleep on and missed his stop) and he let himself inside in a fog, wishing the alcohol had lingered in his blood just a little while longer.

This new knowledge was an anvil. It weighed on him, dragged him down to the dirt and held him there, and it demanded he set it down but there wasn’t a place to put it. How was he supposed to live now, knowing this? He was in his sixties, but he looked younger. How long would he live? Another sixty years? A hundred? Indefinitely? Why had it never occurred to him to ask? Why hadn’t he bothered to put any thought into anything that wasn’t specifically tied to the duties that were right in front of his face?

He hated that it made sense, hated that even he could follow the logic behind Dr. Jury’s new revelation, hated that it should have been obvious to him far before she’d laid it out in layman’s terms and torn his whole life apart.

“What do you need?” Reza had asked him.

Cross needed to…

But he had promised. He’d said he would step back, would give it time. If they didn’t want him around, that was fine. He’d deserved it.

But this was something else, a new variable, something that he had to deal with right now, before it ate him alive. He wanted to scream, to tear the knowledge from his brain, to put his fists through the walls until they bled—

He was sorely tempted to crack open another bottle of liquor and pick up where he’d left off this morning, but Alex’s words on the matter and the memory of his team’s faces stayed his hand. Instead, he drank a fifth of a bottle of flu medicine and let himself drop to his sofa and slip into the sweet bliss of unconsciousness. It wasn’t much better than drinking himself into oblivion, but at least it didn’t leave him with a hangover.

A few hours later someone was knocking at his door again, jarring him awake. His metabolism had processed the sleep aid too fast, but he was still groggy and now very irritable.

Cross was determined to wait it out, to let them knock until they gave up and went away, but after ten minutes of someone pounding on his front door like they were about to be murdered, he grumbled and dragged himself upright. Now pissed, he staggered to his door and threw it open, a hand up and his mouth open to berate the absolute asshole who had thought it was _so fucking important _to wake him up, but his stomach clenched and his words turned to ash on his tongue.

Looking back at him now was a pair of bright blue eyes, so electric and alive and _healthy _that Cross had never realized how awful he always looked until he looked normal_. _

“Hey.” Alex stuffed his hands in his pockets, his mouth quirking up into a smile. “We’ve moved on from booze to Nyquil, huh? You should know that’s not much better.”

“Alex.” Cross gaped. “What are you doing here?” He wanted to smack himself. Alex came all this way and that’s the first thing he says?

“What, I can’t come visit after you practically ghosted me?”

“Dana—”

“I know.” Alex clapped a hand on his shoulder. “Look, your team called me; I think we need to talk, and I don’t know about you, but I’m starving, so...” He shifted from foot to foot for a second, his eyes lighting up with something that looked like hope. "Dinner?"


End file.
